what a hoot...

E spent this Halloween (his 4th one!) as a wise lil' hoot owl.  Yesterday evening, we trick-or-treated around Jesse's office and tonight we spent some time at our church and around our neighborhood.  We had tons of spooky visitors again this year!  E really seems to enjoy hanging around home and handing out candy best of all.  And...I think all of the trick-or-treaters really liked that he took over the job this year.  He would grab handfuls of candy for them and ask them what kind they liked.  It was too cute!  Hope you all had a fun and happy Halloween...this girl's tired and headed for bed...night!

  

the creeper....

after about 10 years of hearing great things about the Virginia Creeper trail, I was finally able to experience it yesterday.  My Dad, Jesse, E and I headed up with our bikes and spent some much needed time outdoors.  Although a lot of the leaves had already fallen in the area, it was still nice to see them all covering the path as we rode along and it was nice that it wasn't crowded.  We rode only a portion of the trail stretching between Abingdon and Damascus which was about 15 1/2 miles.  I hadn't ridden my bike in a long time and boy could I tell.  The ride was a pretty easy one and I was still sore and panting by the time we reached our destination.
Our plan was to have lunch and ride the same portion of the trail back to our car.  But, shortly after we started back, my Dad ended up with a flat tire so Jesse rode back solo and picked us up.  I'm thinking maybe that flat was the Lord's way of saving me and E from the trip back.  After hearing about it from Jesse, I know I would have really struggled and E was already getting restless in his little trailer.  Despite my achy body, I can say that it's definitely a trip we'll take again.  If you haven't visited and you're looking for a good day-trip option from our area, it's a great pick!

        

big jack......little jack.......jack, jack, jack...

I can’t remember a stage of Eli’s life where he hasn’t loved lights.  From very early on, I noticed that this little boy just couldn’t get enough of them.  I’ve always thought it was extremely cool, too, how the Lord placed this little boy with such a love of lights in the middle of Christmas Town…what better place could there be, right?  Anyway…now that it’s the spooky time of year again, we’re taking walks around our neighborhood to see all of the lit jack-o-lanterns and cute string lights hanging around.  And…we’ve got several “jacks” sitting around in our house.  We’ve got a “Jack”, a “Big Jack”, a “Little Jack”…about any “Jack” you can imagine.  Two of them hang around and glow in E’s bedroom at night which just thrills him.  On Sunday, we spent some time working on a couple of other jacks to add to the collection.  It was E’s first time pumpkin-carving and he seemed to have a ball…

I spent this past weekend with some great friends at the Women of Faith conference.  If you’re a woman and you haven’t been to one of these, I say you should strongly consider it.  If you’re a man and you haven’t been, take my word for it and don’t go…it would be extremely weird ;-)  I’m laughing at myself right now, but I feel sure that you’re not and that you're probably thinking I'm pretty cheesy....  sooooo…let’s move on…;-)  The weekend included lots of great worship tunes and super great speaking.  Christine Caine, from Australia, was one of the speakers and was easily my most favorite part of the conference.  Ladies…if you have not heard her before, look her up online and check her out!  The story of her life and how she’s used things in her past to provide a future for others is incredible.  I’m convinced that the hour of listening to her speak was one of the most quickly passing hours of my life.  I really could listen to her all day!  I picked up her latest book "Undaunted" while we were there and it's a great read so far.

While I was busy getting blown away by Christine’s message, Jesse and E were busy playing at the apple orchard and talking with Johnny Appleseed.  When I got home, E was sound asleep and dirty which told me that it had been a really good day in his book :-)  I was so glad that Jesse remembered to take the camera with them…AND, that he even remembered to take pictures ;-)  

hermanus...

I was just editing some pictures from the last few days of our trip this summer and realized I never posted about our final little get-away while we were there. Before leaving, we spent a couple of days in Hermanus, a quaint little coastal town that's famous for whale-watching. We stayed in a super cozy hotel named the Harbour House, where we were able to spot a few whales while eating breakfast in our room. I mean, I'm used to occasionally spotting a dolphin from the beach hotels at home, but whales? That was pretty crazy. We took a whale-watching cruise while we were there and at one point were surrounded by 9 huge Southern Right whales. We also saw lots of seals and penguins, a few great whites, and watched a group of shark divers in action. Out of all of the things to be excited about in Hermanus, E was most thrilled by the John Deere pulling our boat ;-)

goin' swimmin' ?

nope.... just weed-eatin' :-)

Jesse brought home a toy weed-eater on Wednesday and it literally took E's breath away. He gasped and then said "Oh, wow!" several times as he ran around the room with it. It was definitely love at first sight ;-)

well hello, leaver...

unusual name, huh? When we asked him what he wanted to name his new pet caterpillar, Eli had no problem landing on this one...Leaver. Of course, it's because he likes to eat leaves :-) Our neighbor, Mrs. Paula, finds these caterpillars in her flower gardens a lot and saved this one for E. We fixed him a nice new home and he's now hanging out in the kitchen window sill, praying that he'll survive the loud, sticky-fingered little boy, I'm sure ;-)

Check out E's faces...can you tell he was just a tish excited?