halloween

so, here in slovak (at least in the lutheran areas), october 31st is reformation day, preceded by reformation week. as such, i was anticipating very little in the way of costumes, masks, pumpkin carving, etc. well, i was very surprised to find that on the thursday and friday before halloween, the afterschool-type program that i work with three days a week, was "celebrating halloween." that mainly translated to making masks with the kids, so that they could wear them and take them home and show their parents since they didn't have homework those two days because they didn't have school. that in and of itself was really fun (i made a tomato mask for myself and called it bob. most of you (especially if you ever watched movies in sunday school) probably know why, if not ask me and i'll tell you..or google it.

then, on saturday, october 31st, we had a worship service for reformation day at 4:30 and after it, i headed over with the other young adults to the mladeš youth group, where we found people carving pumpkins!! they had three pumpkins, which were all already gutted. it was fun watching and then they asked me to carve the final pumpkin, so i actually got to carve a pumpkin (which i haven't done in years) on halloween!!! we didn't go as far as cooking the pumpkin seeds and eating them, like my mom had always done growing up, but it was really nice to have people celebrating with me something that is a fairly distinctly "american" holiday:)

here's a picture of my pumpkin, nice and goofy, just like me:) \