The Day We Got Our Imported Pumpkins

Ever since Katelyn was old enough to walk, she has loved to garden, thanks in large part to her Great-Grandma Hardy (aka "Hardy"). As a young girl, I loved going to Grandma and Grandpa Hardy's farm to pick vegetables and play with the animals, so I was thrilled to watch Katelyn thoroughly enjoy the same experience many years later.

When we lived in Utah, Katelyn loved going out to Hardy's house to check on the progress that the vegetables and pumpkins had made throughout the summer. They had so much fun out there together. In fact we were convinced that each of those visits "turned the clock back" several years for Hardy. These are some of my favorite pictures from "The Harvest of 2004." The two of them played out there for hours and loved every minute of it. We called them the "Garden Girls."

In the spring of 2005, Katelyn had a chance to help Hardy plant some of her garden and once again they had a ball. We moved to Washington in June of that year, so visiting Hardy and their garden was first priority on Katelyn's to do list during our visits to Utah.

In 2006, we started planting our own little garden and it has been so much fun. Even though we don't really know what we are doing, everything we plant seems to grow and the girls both love the entire process. We haven't made the space commitment though to grow pumpkin of our own, so we were so excited this year when Hardy and Uncle Russell began planning a trip to Washington to deliver pumpkins to the girls. Unfortunately, some things at Russell's work postponed their trip until after pumpkin season, but much to our surprise UPS delivered a package today that contained two "Hardy grown" Utah imported pumpkins.

But the pumpkins weren't the only amazing thing in that box... their were also packing peanuts. The girls had so much fun playing with them and making it "snow" on their pumpkins. Fortunately, that is the only "snow" we've seen so far this fall.

Both girls were exhausted by the end of the afternoon, especially when I said it was time to clean up the "snow." Thanks so much to Hardy and Uncle Russell for sharing the joy of your garden (and modern packing technology) with us even when we live far away.