Happy Halloween! | Anny Chih

Everyone and their pumpkins at the annual Rogers’ Pumpkin Carving Party

I hung out with fellow Best Job candidates Erik Rolfsen and Marcella Moser in Vancouver (Canada), had dinner with James Hill and Greg Reynen in Brisbane (Australia), met up with Mitch Moffit in Townsville (Australia), and now I can tick Steven Rogers off my list too! It’s too bad Cali Lewis wasn’t in Texas at the time.

To be honest, I had forgotten Steven lived in Texas (even though his Twitter account is @Steven_in_Texas ). My bad. The last I remembered through our Best Job e-mail threads (everyone still keeps in touch), he was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and roaming the streets of Europe! I received a message from him when we first arrived in Amarillo, Texas asking where we were planning on going in Texas and if we would be passing his way. He invited us to his family’s annual Pumpkin Carving Party, and we happily accepted his invitation!

Steven, his family and friends are all very typical Southerners. And by that I mean that they’re super friendly! I really like the feeling of New Mexico and Texas because everyone is generally nicer down south.

There were heaps of neighbourhood kids and their parents at the party all happily chatting, munching on cookies and candies, and taking part in their 20+ year tradition of carving pumpkins together. The Rogers family have a large dining room table covered in photos from past pumpkin carving parties including one where Steven is sporting an ‘80s mullet (my fav). LOL

Throughout the home, there are pictures of all their travels (and the whole family has travelled a lot). After a little tour, we started carving our pumpkins and mingling over cookies. A great time was had, and the pumpkins turned out fairly well. The only bad part of the afternoon was the attack of the mosquitoes. Both Ang and I get allergic reactions from mosquito bites and I was unfortunately bitten on the forehead. Ugh.

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