another year, another damariscotta pumpkin festival

boy is that fun though. those pumpkins are just huge! the winner (also a new state of maine record) weighed 1,471 pounds. one THOUSAND, four HUNDRED, and seventy-one! it was almost the size of a smart car! they're not pretty looking though, they get all flattened on the bottom, and the rinds look deflated and wrinkly. not round and plump like regular pumpkins. so, big, but not about to win any beauty pageants. haha!

we started our pumpkinfest fun with a pumpkin pancake breakfast at the damariscotta VFW hall. mmmm, pumpkin pancakes! then we did the kid stuff (actually, nick did the kid stuff with the kids while i went to rising tide and shopped their bulk grain bins. oh how i love those bulk grain bins!). finally, we watched the pumpkin regatta (wherein they actually hollow out pumpkins, get inside, and either paddle or attach an outboard, and race! mainers, what a bunch of loons!

yesterday was also a fun day--fall foliage festival at the railway village. the fall foliage is really festive this year. lots of pretty colors. oh and you'll never believe this (nina has picked up this expression from me, and it sounds SO cute when she says it!), but we actually had some purple leaves along the path from our house to mom and dad's (not the short "highway" between the two houses, but the waterfront trail). and not just purple maple purple either. these were a lilac! dad tried getting a picture, i'll have to check and see if it turned out well enough to post. really something though, i've never seen a purple like that before!

oh, so the fall foliage festival was at the railway village as always, and the girls wanted to sit on the tractors. there's one orange one that you drive standing up, there's no seat (of course, that's pretend to drive for the kids, the tractors are just parked!), and maggie loves that one. "you stand on it," she said, "it's weally cool." cute!!

a nina cutie: this evening before bed, nina told nick, "gabe from school and i can never tell our rest-time towels apart because (and here she let out an exasperated sigh) we have the same one!" sometimes she really sounds like a teenager!