Pumpkin Patch

I love all things fall - carving pumpkins, apple cider, pumpkin spiced lattes, jumping in piles of leaves, Saturday night football games, Keeneland (must live in Lexington to understand this), tailgating, smores...well, you get the point. I really love pumpkin patches. I used to have visions of our family going to the pumpkin patch every year, doing the hayride, picking out our family pumpkins, and carving them together that night. I say used to because, well, in Tokyo, although they celebrate Halloween and have decorations, you cannot find the pumpkin patch that I know and love. So, you make do with what you have and just be thankful there is a place called a Pumpkin Patch in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. We decided to start October with a bang and go have a picnic at the pumpkin patch. For those of you in Tokyo, it is a ten minute walk from Shinkiba station. A friend told me about it last year and Miss M at the time was into Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin. She LOVED the pumpkin patch last year. In her mind, it is the only pumpkin patch, so it is pretty great. I have to remember to not tell her what pumpkin patches are like in my hometown. This is all she knows, and I love that this is what she knows, so we consider this our new pumpkin patch tradition. You do not take a pumpkin home, but you get to try on costumes and they had a kids singing show on the day we went. Now, we were in shorts and T-shirts because it was HOT (Tokyo has yet to learn that fall starts in September/early October), but we had a blast. Miss M liked having the K Man try on different hats and headbands. And she naturally LOVED getting to wear the Minnie Mouse costume. You know, I am so thankful that God has given us a pumpkin patch here in Tokyo. It is the little things like this He uses to encourage me. It may sounds strange, but it is as if He drops little tokens of love down for me through things like a Pumpkin Patch to make living in a foreign country a bit more like home. We are blessed, blessed indeed. Oh, and the K Man - He's walking!! Can you believe that? Not everywhere, but enough. We were afraid his legs were so big he could not hold himself up, but he finally did it this week. He will walk from Miss M to me and back to Miss M and give us both big hugs. Miss M tries to "help" by pushing him a bit, and he sometimes topples over, but he gets right back up and keeps going. Love my kids. More on that, but for now, enjoy the pics.