October

Well it seems we only get a chance to post to our blog once a month. Sorry for the long post but here is October in a nutshell. It was a pretty eventful month.

Price Park
Before the morning session of Sunday General Conference we decided to go for a run/hike at Price Park near Jennie's parents house. The park is beautiful. It has everything from cow pastures (not pictured), to forest trails, rapids/small waterfalls, and a river meandering through grassy fields. We really enjoyed the hike and will definitely be going back. There were way too many pictures to post, but here are the highlights.

Eagle Court of Honor
We went to Martin's first Eagle Court of Honor as a Scoutmaster. He conducted and was really nervous but did alright in the end. The Court of Honor was held at Falls Lake. A great state recreation area near Durham. It was less than 30 minutes away. There was a very nice campground and the Court of Honor was very nice. It was definitely a memorable experience.

North Carolina State Fair
So we have heard so much about the fair and were excited to go. Our friends Nathan and Carolyn invited us to go and we were happy to say yes. Well it turns out half of our ward decided to go that night too and we enjoyed meeting lots of friends throughout the night. Here is a quick synopsis of our night: free hush puppies, NC State creamery ice cream, giant vegetables, pigs, goats, cows, and steer, fried Snickers bar, cakes, crafts, hot/barbeque sauce sampling, pickles, artwork, fried everything you can think of, lemonade, homeade root beer, kettle corn, racing pigs, racing ducks, racing goats, more cool but expensive crafts, and a great fireworks show. Yeah it was a pretty crazy night, but lots of fun. Here are a few pictures.

Giant pumpkins.

Crazy cakes

Ward Campout

So we went camping with our ward at Umstead State Park. The park has two entrances both within 15 minutes of our house. It is a beautiful place to hike and to have group camping. We were in a cabin with Nathan and Carolyn.

Martin had spider removal duty. This critter created quite the stir at the campfire.

The leaves were changing and it made for some great pictures. We stopped on the side of the road on the way out of the park several times so that Martin could take pictures.

Ward Trunk or Treat
Okay so you have all been there. It's the night before a costume party and you don't have a costume. It's the mad dash to the closet to see what you can throw together. Well we don't have much by way of costumes to our closets so we made a mad dash for the local costumes shops at 7:00 the night before trunk or treat. The only item we found in our price range was a head band with fake leaves attached to it so we ran with the idea. Two sets of bed sheets, some fake ivy and flowers, and gold ribbons later we had our costumes completed. We were surprised with the end result. Not bad for a last minute idea.
We have been planning our trunk for a month unlike the costumes. We gather all of our fall/Halloween decorations and put them together, added a few spider webs and spiders and got a great result. The pictures don't do the trunk justice really.

This is our resident pumpkin man. He has been living on our balcony for the duration of the Halloween season. He decided he wanted to come along and help pass our candy. It was great to have him with us. We will be sad to see him go, but it will be nice for Martin to get his clothes back.

Pumpkin Carving
What more can we say. It's a tradition.

Happy Halloween

Halloween has finally come and gone. It was a very relaxing day. We enjoyed the traditional pumpkin sloppy joes. Then we lit our pumpkins and sat down and waited for the trick or treaters to come. Well only 6 came and we were kind of sad, but it was a fun evening regardless.


This is our apartment from the outside. Unfortunately you can't see the pumpkin man hanging out on our balcony.