Citrouille or not to Citrouille?

Hey,

As I mentioned earlier, we are having a pumpkin party this Sunday - this requires lots of prep (fun for me) - but, most importantly, PUMPKINS! Yesterday the kids and I went out to the thrift store for a punchbowl for our wormy apple punch and the art supply store and grocery store in search of tacks and googly eyes and, of course, the elusive pumpkins. It was raining all day and we were unable to find anything on our list (except the punch bowl) but the kids got to go to Quickos (french for mcdonalds) at lunch - which they loved as they have a play area and hot dogs.... Here they are pictured on the way home from the last bus ride of the day:

Of course, no blog would be complete without a poop update so I will mention one exciting thing that happened that afternoon. Griffin finally went pee on a potty that wasn't in our home (see photo).

Of course, today he peed in his pants 3 times and pooped in them 4 (still has an angry belly from that baguette) - so I guess it's one step foward, two steps back.

Anyway, back to the pumpkins, I went to four stores searching and was unable to find them (despite being assured I could get one before I even planned the pumpkin party) and asked (who else?) Olivier for help.

He found some little produce place (1/2 mile from the closest bus stop) that had them. Supposedly you can go in, look at the pumpkins and then point to the one you would like and say - get me three more of those! Then they will get them for you the next day. Well, what with one thing or another I hadn't gotten around to ordering them yet (it may have been the constantly pouring rain, the fact I didn't know exactly where this place was or how I would navigate asking someone for help with my limited French and the fact that we have some sort of meeting every day). So Olivier helpfully ordered them for me - to be picked up today. Also, Sevrine, one of André's coworkers, brought a pumpkin into work and gave it to him. Wow, I am thinking, 4 pumpkins - great! All I have to do is go pick them up while the kids are at school.

Well, it turns out we had a meeting this morning at Zander's school and it ran late--I'll say more about this later, but André (who had borrowed Olivier's car so he wouldn't miss too much work) agreed (once I begged) to pop me over there and drop me back home so I would be able to make it back to pick up the kids at school on time for lunch. (and also so I wouldn't have to lug 3 giant pumpkins home on the bus with Griffin in tow as well).

So, we get there and the citrouille are nowhere in sight. They will come in "10 little minutes", says the shop keeper. OK... I guess we will wait. And so, (taking advantage of the fact we have a car for a few brief and shining moments) we hop over to Carrefoure (french for walmart) and pick up some garden soil, laundry detergent and other fun things.

This bag of gardening soil was hard for us to translate--but Rebecca's electronic pocket translater said that engrasse was fattened duck, which we thought was hysterical. Of course, in France, everything is fattening--even dirt.

We then return to the produce place to get the citrouille. Pictured below is what I expected - and it is, in fact, the citrouille that Sevrine got for us. (so we know they do exist here)

This is what we got....

All I can say is - that is not a pumpkin - I don't know what it is - but it is NOT a pumpkin! It will be what our jack-o-lanterns are carved out of, however, b/c I am using the only real pumpkin to make pumpkin curry soup and pumpkin bread for our fete (where it came from I don't know--hopefully I'll find out by this time next year).