Fall leaves, and yet it lingers

We love the fall! It is one of the things we missed most living in California. We had to drive over an hour to see changing leaves. Since we have come back to Utah, we have made several trips in the fall to Provo Canyon to walk along the trail and enjoy the fall colors. Ben is so nutty about fall that he starts telling me he can feel the changes in the air in AUGUST! I love it too, however, I rather appreciate each season while it lasts and try not to rush anything in. It was nice to have the cold in October and even some snow. The kids are pretty good at snowballs! It was crazy to have the first day of November at 74 degrees and a week later freezing our pants off! Now that it's almost winter time again and the leaves are starting to blow off the trees. . . bring on the snow!

The Monster

Halloween

We had a great Halloween! There was the spook alley at the school, the Halloween Carnival the YM/YW put on at the church, and trick or treating! Madelyn went as Hermoine Grainger from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Regan was Indiana Jones, Dylan was Captain Rex from Star Wars the Clone Wars, and Lauren was a Hawaiian girl for the Indoor activities, and a scarecrow for trick or treating. Oh yeah, and Ben was a Mad Scientist. He even won $25 for having the scariest costume at work! For Ben, the highlight must have been putting together the spook alley and scaring the pants off of the sixth graders (Madelyn enjoyed that part, too). I think what the other kids (baby excepted) liked best was the train ride. We have some people in our community (their daughter is my friend) who have a mini train that goes around their property as well as their neighbors (who are also their kids.) We rode the train in the summer once, but at Halloween and Christmas they do a special train ride for the holiday. They did a great job. All along the track, they have little tunnels set up with themes and they scare you. They even had a guy on a real horse with a Lord of the Rings character mask on. Major spooky! Ben was holding on to Dylan's poor little shaking body and kept smacking his knees on the tunnels, and Lauren was petrified. Other than that, it was better than trick or treating! I, of course, love that the candies that are my favorite are ones the kids don't like, and that Halloween sewing was light this year! We also had fun doing the pumpkin carving, and have neighbors who hand out fresh hot dogs and homemade root beer to trick or treaters! The only sad part was that with all the work we put into the spook alley, we didn't make it to a pumpkin patch this year. We got some good pictures anyway and hope for a calmer season next year. Fall is Fun!

At long last

I am repenting and starting anew. October was insane! I barely had time to pause to recognize my birthday as the majority of our time was spent on a spook alley for the kids school. We spent hours preparing things for it, putting it together and tearing it down in the end. I am now officially 33. Twin digits. Isn't that supposed to mean something magically wonderful will happen this year? So far, no magic.