We live in a world with Octobers!

October Adventures:

I teach primary! These are my two "regulars" on the day we covered the brother of Jared. Needless to say, there were barges built out of paper bowls and stones picked from this "mountain" so that they could be turned to light. Also needless to say, the boys thought the barges looked more like UFO's and would take turns running up the "mountain" and throwing them like frisbees.

General conference time! Matt puts his painting skills to work with some cinnamon rolls.

Our new place doesn't have that lame $25 fee to pay to get our trash collected. So we've taken advantage of the spoiler on the back of Ranger to deliver our trash ourselves.

General conference in our still-quite-messy-house

Ag Day
My second Ag day, and it was great! Basically, all the clubs at Orange set up booths and fundraise, everyone gets to wear cowboy gear, the barn is open for  visitors and everyone just eats food that is bad for you! It's kind of like the state fair, but smaller.

Chainsaw Competition

Piglets!

Step team, I have a lot of students that have joined this team and they are getting good!

All the kills my students have made.

My mom and sisters surprised me with a visit for my birthday. I am the master of figuring out secrets, and I am proud to say that this is something that Matthew successfully kept from me until 10 minutes before it happened. That's gotta be a record. He told me we were going to the beach for the weekend, but he kept insisting that we needed to clean our house before we go and that we needed to go get ice cream on our way out. These were very strange requests, and being the person that I am, I fought him on the ice cream thing, because I a) didn't feel like eating ice cream when it was cold, wet, and rainy outside, and b) didn't understand why at the time we needed to go right then- I was all for doing it on the way back, because I had some last minute things that I needed to get done before we went out of town for the weekend. And I fought hard. But Matthew persisted, threw a couple of empty suitcases and our pillows into the trunk, and finally on the car ride over to Maple View farms, where we would be meeting my family I figured out that there was no POSSIBLE reason that we HAD to go to Maple view farms except for that we were meeting someone there. And I was right. We pulled up, and there were a number of people sitting on the wooden rocking chairs out front reading newspapers, covering their faces. One had a random hole with what looked like the back of a cell phone pointed out. That's my family. We hugged and had some delicious ice cream, and headed home. We fed them some Q Shack, and came home and watched a movie. The next day was Sunday, and we went to church, Matthew took over my primary class for my birthday, so that I could go to relief society with my mom. We took a quick drive to see the Raleigh Temple, played some games, and played out in the backyard. Emily showed us her mad soccer skills. Monday morning we got some Rise Biscuits and donuts. North Carolina was already great in my book for having delicious southern food, but then I had Rise. I was dying, they are seriously so good.

Mom crying, because when she laughs really really hard, she cries really really hard. I think we were watching a youtube compilation of babies scared of their own farts, and that's what got her. Poor Mom. The thing is, I'm pretty sure I have her genes...

Naturally, Brooke stole my phone a number of times.

Emily drew me a birthday cake

And I got a real one with my favorite state on it.

Emily being herself.

We picked up some bojangles and took it to Duke Gardens for a picnic. Emily showed us the secret handshake she and mom made up.

Two teenagers addicted to cellular devices.

We made some homemade bird seed feeders with pinecones and peanut butter. 

After that it was time to go home. It was a super quick trip, and I'm bummed that they couldn't have stayed longer, but I was so glad that they came!! It was the greatest birthday surprise!

 We went to the state fair! Again! And it was great!

The biggest pumpkin winner

Matt's first elephant ear. Loved it.

We went to this weird hypnotist show. 

This is how we felt about it.

My favorite part again, was the bunnies!!

 Depressed bunny

Paranoid-with-bangs bunny

Dalmatian Bunny

Wookie bunny

Static electricity bunny

Dead bunny (not actually dead**)

Head-bob bunny

Excessive eyeliner bunny 

Death punk bunny 

Don't have a name for this one, just thought it was a cute one.

Hungover bunny 

Demon bunny

Afro bunny

On the last weekend of the month, we took a trip with some friends down to Lake Lure at a cabin in the weekend. The bummer part, was the trip was incredibly short. But the great part, is that it was spent with good friends, great food, fun games, and beautiful sights. Fall is absolutely breathtaking in North Carolina.

Possibly the most delicious meal I've had. Fried chicken in a sweet potato waffle. 

On the way home, we drove on the famous Blue Ridge Parkway. When you google "things to do in North Carolina," this usually comes up pretty high on the list. It was worth the detour, and pictures really don't do it justice. It was a beautiful Sunday drive, so we put on some hymns, and just watched the colors blur out our window. Possibly one of my most memorable Sundays I've ever had. There was such a strong spirit being in God's beautiful Earth. We will undoubtedly be driving it again in the future. I couldn't quite pick the pictures to put, so there are just a lot.

And lastly... Halloween!

I'll give you one guess as to why we got zero trick or treaters this year.

We found our costumes at target!!

Just kidding, we are poor, so we just dressed up as soccer players.

But we had the SWEETest trunk for trunk or treat.

Octobers are the best!!