Pumpkin Season

I. Love. Fall.  Growing up, there were probably a dozen pumpkin patches to choose from each fall season.  Here in Alabama, I was just so grateful there was one.  Luke and I went to a farm in Harpersville, AL.  It had your typical corn maze, pumpkin patch, hay bale ride, and fall treats.  But there was something there you would not expect at a pumpkin patch: A cival war reinactment.  That was definitely a first for me.

This trip to a pumpkin patch was special.  Luke and I met exactly four years before on that day at a ward activity to a pumpkin patch.  It was special that four years later, we were married, thousands of miles from where we met, enjoying picking a pumpkin.

When we took our pumpkins home, we also had a lot of fun decorating and carving them!

We attended our church's trunk-or-treat event.  We decided to participate with the trunking and decorated our trunk.  We were very please by the kinds of things we could purchase at the Dollar Store (always a winner) and had fun making a cob web with spiders in our trunk with other spooky things including a spooky light and music from our phones.  All that mattered to us was that our Sumbeams (3-4 year-old) students loved looking at our trunk, and were definite fans of the Minion pumpkin.  They were like 100% of why Luke carved a Minion.

Luke and I went dressed as Peter Pan and his shadow.  Fun fact: I was all dressed up as Tinker Bell (Yes, we recycled our costumes from the Disneyland race) and 5 minutes before we left, decided to make a costume change. But it was a hit!

Georgia!

A few weeks ago, Luke and I headed out to the Atlanta suburb of Grayson, where Luke grew up.  A family friend was having a wedding reception, so we headed out and met Luke's mom and step-dad who came down from Virginia. We had a great weekend together.

I picked up Luke from the Atlanta airport.  He was gone on a business trip, and so it worked out that he was flying through ATL anyways. Grayson is a beautiful town. I had been to the house that Luke's family lived in in high school, but I had never seen the home he lived in until age 14 that was a couple of towns over.   We went to see the house, and I must say that it was one of the literally 3 times that I have seen Luke be sentimental (I am extremely sentimental, so he balances me out).  The home was beautiful.  We also hiked through some woods by his house to find a hidden waterfall he would always play in as a kid with his dad and siblings.  This was not a planned hike, so we did it in Luke's business clothes and my not-for-hiking clothes.  But it was very fun and absolutely beautiful!

   

The next morning, we went for a run at Tribble Mill where Luke would always run with his XC and track team in high school.  Laura came with us on a very rainy run.

That afternoon, Luke and I headed to Stone Mountain.  I have heard story after story from Luke about Stone Mountain.  His family would go often.  But you don't really appriciate it until you are there.  The Atlanta region is pretty flat.  But suddenly, there is this GIANT piece of granite that just sticks out of the ground. We had a lot of fun hiking it.  This time, at least I was prepared to hike. I kept telling Luke that it was going to rain again and that he needed to bring his rain jacket.  Of course, I did not listen.  So as we hiked back down the mountain as it poured and poured, I had a smug grin on my face as Luke cold and soaked, while I was warm and dry :)