Pumpkin Crew!

Last weekend, Izzy and her family invited Chloe and me plus a few other friends, Tony, Daven, Tess, and Rachel, to her house for a pumpkin carving session!

It was my first time experiencing the culture of how a typical American family celebrated Halloween. I found a few things surprising, and hey, follow me in my step-by-step instruction for what I deemed a quality pumpkin carving session.

1. Cleaning (Gutting! Really) the Pump

The pumpkins were huge! Here’s me starting the carving session by gutting the poor pumpkin from the inside, extracting its seeds for later (I was told they’re delicious toasted!).

Notice Josh on my left? That’s Izzy’s younger brother! He’s way ahead with his mechanical saw gutting his pumpkin ruthlessly!

2. Hot Chocolate/ Apple Cider Break

Hey, gutting is a huge deal. Completion of that means I deserve a nice cup of apple cider (my first time trying this too!) and followed by creamy marshmallow hot chocolate! Mmmm. The cold weather of Northfield means that I enjoyed these drinks much more than usual!

3. Pumpkin Carved! 

After a long, while figuring what my pumpkin will be, I finally settled on a unicorn pumpkin. I think it turned out pretty well! What do you think?

I have to admit it was difficult trying to get the lines straight while making sure the pumpkin stays intact and not completely shredded to pieces haha.

Here are all our pumpkins! After carving the pumpkins, we decided to do a little photoshoot to wrap up our time.

It was such a wholesome moment and it makes me really appreciate my Carleton fam! I am able to be a part of a community that is beyond the college campus and be involved with the culture — learning more about my surroundings and letting people learn about my own culture too!

Thank you Izzy and family! <3

Lita hails all the way from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. When not riding horses, petting them, or sketching a picture of them, she blogs her philosophical brain dumps on Medium. Other than that, Lita is passionate about social impact startups and edu-tech. She plans on majoring in Computer Science, but who knows, she could simply switch to Studio Art and spend her days drawing horses. Hey, that’s why we’re at Carleton, am I right? Meet the other bloggers!