State Fair! And other adventures

Last weekend we went to the North Carolina State Fair. It is the first time that either of us have been to a state fair (Which is a sin for a Texan... I know), and it was great-ish! Mostly it was nice to get out of the house. My life consists of this: wakeup, go to school, teach, grade things, meetings, come home, lesson plan, sleep. With some eating in between. So getting out was good.

As poor people, we decided to not spend money on rides, but we just kind of hit all the free stuff. Which actually turned out to be pretty great. Here's a glimpse into our evening at the state fair in pictures:

First we hit up the vegetable-growing-area, and ran into these HUGE pumpkins. We took a picture with one, here, and then went around the corner and found ones probably three times the size. Oops. Did you know there are competitions for growing the SMALLEST vegetables too? We found all these baby peppers, and of course, like all women do, there were many squeals and "ITS SO TINY AND CUTE" around the pepper area.

Then we migrated over to the animal area, where there were these GIANT cows and bulls, and this halvsie-colored pig was my favorite. Seriously, how does it get like that?

Camel Cow!

There was also a "milking station" where you could milk cows... for like free. It was like a dream come true, but the line was too long to wait, so it was therefore not so much a dream come true.

THIS GUY WAS JUST IN THIS LITTLE GAZEBO WITH HUNDREDS OF BEES. A few minutes later we saw him walking around outside of the bee gazebo and we were like, how do we know that the bees didn't get out with him???

They fry EVERYTHING. I can't imagine this stuff actually tasting good. Deep fried reese's wrapped in bacon??? Just... just no.

FAT BUNNIES. 

 Albino demon bunny.

Stoner-hippie bunny

 Triple-chin bunny. 

There was a garden for a flower competition, a arts-and craft lodge where people just brought these crafts they did to be judged. It was so cool! I had never heard of these types of competitions- and I bet I could probably one-up some of them ha. Maybe next year! We ate lots of food that we probably shouldn't have, walked for hours, and were exhausted but satisfied by our adventure at the end of it.

Other happenings in the Shipley household:

Halloween. This week has been SO busy for me. I had my first evaluation, and my ECE interns are starting their internships next Monday so I've been busy placing them at local elementary schools, so we honestly didn't get a chance to REALLY celebrate. We bought a pumpkin, and didn't have time to carve it. Our costume was "magnets" (Matthew's idea). We took some circular cork boards that we have as hot pads, wrapped them in foil, and them wrapped them in black duct tape, and then duct taped them to our backs. And that was it. Took like 6 minutes to make. My high school does not allow costumes, so I wore black and orange toms with halloween socks Matt got me for my birthday. Some kids were honestly like, "Your shoes don't match..." YEAH I KNOW, THAT'S THE POINT. 

We are part of a once-a-month couples FHE group, and on Halloween we got together and ate food and played Bezzerwizzer. Fun people, good company, lots of candy. 

We have been working HARD on family history work! I'm finally starting to really get Matthew into it. Now that it is our calling, we feel especially that we should be more involved in the work. Luckily, since Matthew's family includes converts and adoptions, there is a lot of work to be done, and its been both an adventure and a blessing to work on it. 

And finally, it is FALL! I've seen pictures everywhere of people posting their beautifully colored trees and mountains. And it has been just green here. But it finally started to cool down and the forests are BEAUTIFUL. I'll take & post some pictures later. 

Shipley current "favorite's"

• Movie: 50/50
• Book (Elise): Just finished the Time Traveler's wife, Cry the beloved Country, and now am on The Heretic's Daughter
• Book (Matt): Inventing the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics
• Food: FCB's, lemonade, homemade sushi
• TV Show: Malcolm in the Middle, Gotham, Chuck
• Song: Shake it off (T Swift)
• Money Saving Effort: No more air conditioning (Our bills are through the roof here)
• Project: Family History Work
• Pastime: sleeping. 
• All time thing: Each other.