Climbing the Currituck Lighthouse

One of the great sites in Currituck County is the Currituck Lighthouse in Corolla. The other week, they had a festival for the local residents and we were able to climb the lighthouse for free. So I took the plunge and climbed the 220 steps to the top. It's quite a feat for a guy who has problems with heights, but it was well worth it.

Kara and Kasia decided to stay at the bottom and wait for me. Actually, we decided that we didn't want to go up with Kasia because we knew that inevitably we'd get half-way up and she'd want us to carry her the rest of the way. And since Kara has already climbed the lighthouse, it just made sense for them to stay at the bottom.

This is what Kara and Kasia look like from atop the Currituck Lighthouse. That's them in the very center sitting in the shade of the tree.

Pumpkin Carving

For the very first time, we decided to carve a pumpkin for Halloween this year. I actually haven't carved a pumpkin since I was a kid, so it has been a really long time since I've done this. The one thing I always remembered about doing this when I was a kid was that when you're scooping out the insides of the pumpkin, it stinks. It's bad. I actually think that was the reason why it has been so long since I've done this.

So it was no surprise to me when we started scooping out the pumpkin, Kasia didn't enjoy the smell much either.

In fact, she hated it. She covered her nose, ran out of the room, and gave up on the pumpkin. Eventually she would return, but with a mask over her face to keep the smell out.

Something else that I remember about doing this from my younger days was that I used to have this special knife for carving pumpkins that was safe for kids to use. It was called the Pumpkin Kutter, and it made carving a pumpkin as easy as slicing butter. Well, this time I didn't have the Kutter and had to rely on regular knife. It was possibly one of the worst experiences I've ever had. The next day I went online and promptly ordered three new Pumpkin Kutters so that next year I will not be caught unprepared.

Chilly

Like most of the country, we're having a bit of a cold streak in our weather. On tuesday morning, we woke up to discover that it was 28 degrees outside. That is just a tad chilly for this time of the year. The car (as you can see) was completely covered in ice. For the first time in a long time, I had to warm up the car and blast the heat just to thaw the thing out.

The strange thing is that by noon, the temperature was in the upper 60's. Kasia and I went to the park and didn't even need jackets. In fact, we were a little warm just by wearing pants instead of shorts. How does one dress for days like these? It's winter in the morning and summer just a few hours later. I think this is exactly why they invent those pants where the bottoms unzip to transform them into shorts. Genius.

Worst. Slice. Ever!

Well, it finally happened. After living on the golf course for over two years, somebody finally broke a window with a golf ball. I always said that because of where our house lies on the the golf course, you'd either have to have the worst slice ever to hit our house, or you'd have to do it intentionally. Now, I'm going to be optimistic and hope that it wasn't intentional. Of course, it did happen in the middle of the night while the golf course was closed. But then, that only makes it seem more like an accident. I mean, if you're out there playing some night golf, it's got to be hard to see where the hole is.

The upside is that the cracked window actually looks really cool. And, the best part is that, according to legend, if you stand in a specific spot in the kitchen at a specific time of day, the sun will shoot in through the hole in the window, which then points to the exact location of the Well of the Souls. So that's kind of cool. As it turns out, the Ark of the Covenant is actually buried under my kitchen floor. That would explain a lot of things (like the reason the finger of God is always pointing to my refrigerator).