Pumpkin at the Pumpkin Festival

For Halloween Claire is going to be a monkey. But what better way to dress up for the pumpkin festival in Half Moon Bay than to wear a big orange pumpkin suit. Claire picked it out, so don't blame the parents. So yeah, we dressed her as a pumpkin and put her in the BoB and then made her do a 10K with us. Sarah and I managed to navigate the full 6.2 miles without hitting any of the pumpkin-loving runners with the stroller, an amazing feat given the fact that both the 5K and 10K run along the same narrow path. Anyway, neither of us tried to set any records, we just wanted to see what it was like to run a race with the baby and I'll mark this off in the success category. Claire was cordial and didn't really complain during the race but I do think she growled at a few runners. This proved to be a good technique, because after hearing the growl and turning around to see the cute little pumpkin, most of the time the runners would step to the side and let us pass.

After the race, Claire continued to look cute and we headed over to the festival for our annual tradition of eating pumpkin pancakes. Of course the festival is more than just pancakes, but if you ask me once you've seen one 1500lb pumpkin you've seen them all. Farmer Mike and his title of "World Class Pumpkin Carver" continues to impress and the endless line of artsy booths is worth looking at (but as I like to say this is my least favorite part of the festival). In the following photo, you can tell that Claire was astounded by the delicious pumpkin pancakes, which she is wearing all over her lips.

A trip to the Half Moon Bay pumpkin fest is not complete without visiting a pumpkin patch and we picked out two great big pumpkins at the first patch we saw.
Sarah had fun too. She even got to reminisce about being pregnant:

We had dreamed all year long about how exciting Claire's first visit to a pumpkin patch would be. We imagined her being pulled in a wagon through endless rows of pumpkins, sitting on barrels of hay, poking all the scarecrows and lawn ornaments. However, all the prior excitement of the run and festival tired her out! Instead of enjoying the patch, she just slept the whole time and never even saw it.