Sandy

Like the Great Earthquake and Hurricane Irene, Sandy passed us by without a scratch. Though she did take the leaves off my favorite tree (above) AND brought winter-- highs in the 40s! That's actually colder than the average winter day here. Getting into the Holiday Spirit might be difficult without snow or cold.

Today is Halloween, and in our typical non-festive fashion, we've neither carved pumpkins, planned costumes, nor purchased candy for the trick-or-treaters. I just don't see the point of making a huge mess carving up produce and leave it to rot on our porch or confusing kids by telling them it's okay to take the stranger's candy this time, so there you go. I have no soul.

I actually love Halloween, though! Favorite Holiday after Christmas. Mainly I like decorating in a victorian-y, colorless, decrepit way and having that be okay. I try to add one thing to our decorating stash for each holiday, and this Halloween I made a wreath.

Spooky.

October

Remember how we were called to be Primary teachers like one second after we moved here?

Well, we got released. Todd is going to be the Teacher's Quorum adviser / assistant Boy Scout leader and I'll be a ward missionary (again). Todd didn't do scouts, I didn't go on a mission... LOL, there you have it. 

Did I mention we got bikes? We got bikes!

And because I have no shame, here is a picture of my spectacular first-ride get up. The clothing quotient didn't occur to me until it was actually time to ride. I looked super absurd (especially when I added my fuzzy red mittens later). I've since upgraded.

And we went to the state fair!

It was... a state fair.

Todd worked straight through this weekend.

The leaves are starting to change and the weather has been glorious!

And that's October.

Asheville Deux

 Dad, Mom, and Cait came to see us in NC for Cait's Fall Break. Todd and I drive down to Charlotte to pick them up, and the first great adventure of the trip was my misdemeanor speeding charge for going 84 in a 65. I can feel the speed in our car, but the rental I was driving was so smooth I didn't realize I was going nearly that fast. I was in an unfamiliar area at night, so my attention was on where the other cars were and making sure I planned ahead for our exit. I'll admit to speeding a bit every now and then, but we're talking 5 over at the most and only when that's the flow of traffic! I'm pretty upset about it.

But on to the good stuff:

DAY 1

First stop was Ballantyne, NC--yes, it exists! We had breakfast at the Ballantyne Hotel and bought everything in their pro shop and the one at the Ballantyne Country Club. 

Ballantyne!

We took them out to see the Biltmore. Love that place!

Caitlin claimed it as her future abode. (No worries, I called Versailles.)

We got to go out on the roof and through some of the off-limits areas.

Like any good castle, the roof is guarded from evil by Grotesques. These are deer--the others have tails, but this one's got hacked off, so...

I love the view from that house so much. The guy who built the house owned all the land from here to one mile past the farthest peak!

We barely made it to the estate in time for our tour and arrived with only 7 miles worth of gas left in the tank. The drive out of the estate was 8 miles, plus there was a mile-long line backed up at the entrance. AWESOME. We made it to dinner at Ruth's Chris (DELISH) on prayers and fumes.

DAY 2

The reason we chose Asheville for our weekend trip was to see the leaves in the mountains. It's still almost totally green here in Raleigh, so it was nice to see a little fall color along the Blue Ridge Parkway! We drove along listening to Thomas Newman soundtracks and it was basically great.

We did a short hike at Craggy Pinnacle, which overlooks the reservoir where the Cornucopia scenes were filmed for the first Hunger Games movie. We were in the Arena.

We stopped at a big antique shop (best in Western NC!) and briefly toured a local chocolate factory (also best in Western NC--not!). We spent the evening meandering around downtown Asheville and checking the score of the BYU game on our phones. I know Asheville barely qualifies as a city, but I realized I like city life a lot more than I thought.

DAY 3

Does this look familiar?

Hint.

This is Henry River Mill Village-- a real-life abandoned factory village and location of Peeta's bakery, Katniss' house, and a few other buildings from District 12 (Hunger Games references again). Pretty cool that these places actually exist outside of a sound stage and are all on the same little street.

I had read that the man who owns the property is very strict about keeping people out, so we expected to drive by with Caitlin hanging out the window snapping pictures while being chased down by a grumpy old man with a shotgun. But it was totally open! We wandered all over.

It was a great time!