Waving the white flag of surrender.

Last blog post on Sunday October 16th, was the last time I felt calm, cool and collected.  Since the 16th it's been a steady onslaught of life.  Relentless and in-your-face.  No time to stop, blog or assess.  Finally, with this weekend coming to a close and November 1st on the near horizon, I feel like I can almost breath again.  Almost.

To be fair, the past two weeks have been full of momentous fun.  We visited the NC State Fair! Henry turned 12!  The little sisters came for a visit!  The Primary hosted the ward Trunk-or-Treat!  The kids celebrated Halloween at school! Throw in sewing a couple of costumes, having my last two very longest marathon training runs, a whole handful of subbing days, a book club, and I wondered, can life get any funner?!

Let's look back at the State Fair:

We missed the fair last year.  I have a sneaking suspicion that last October was almost as awesome as this October, and so I was eliminating non-essential events.  But this year, with Henry on the brink of his 12th birthday, he picked "State Fair" as his family birthday outing.  He had heard about the Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheese Burger, that he missed last year, and he was NOT going to miss it again for a second year in a row.  So we took him to the State Fair!

The Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheese Burger.

We bought one, and passed it around:

The verdict was that it was mysteriously delicious!  All encouraged me to partake.  Unfortunately, my very forceful aversion to hamburgers prepared in public place prohibited me from partaking.  But these pictures almost make me feel like I know what it tasted like, no?

Next up on our fried food agenda was to try the fried Twinkie:

Hopefully you know us better than to think that we stopped there. We still had the fried Oreos, fried cookie dough, and fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich (and of course corn dogs and cheese fries hardly count as special fair food, right?)...

Henry's 12-inches of fried cookie dough.  His special birthday treat selection.

Lest you think we only attended the Fair to eat fried stuff, Ruby's particular wish of seeing the pig races was also fulfilled,

And even somehow we convinced the girls that they should see the World's Smallest Woman.

Rounding out this amazing cultural event with a bit of cow milking and a sidewalk magic show.

Wrapping the evening up before anyone could even talk us into the Fried Kool Aid.

Henry's stomach was so upset the next morning that he needed a full day off of school to recover from his ordeal!  Leading me to wonder, if the NC State Fair will ever see us again?!

Long Live October!

Beauty.

Last week I finished another dress.  Dress details can be obtained HERE.  As a result, on this lovely fall afternoon I had my ladies in toe as we went to the edge of the forest to snap a few photos in the dwindling light of day.  When I got home and was looking through the assortment of images, I was struck with the beauty of it all.  

Hoping to remember that the real beauty is often found in the small and simple moments of life. 

In case you're wondering...

In case you are wondering what Darin gave me for my birthday, click on over to MOM and you can see for yourself...

P.S.  Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday well wishes.  I had a lovely time getting older.  All is well.  

Z Sisters

Annee:

Last Two Weeks-ish:

• Amber came to visit!  We haven't had a visit like that in ages.  We spent our days doing a morning workout, followed often by lunch and a bit of sight seeing or shopping.  We'd come home and help out around the house, then prepped-up for our night time activities of going to the movies, TV viewing, crafting, or more shopping.  It was delightful.  I'm so glad she came.  Not sure I've talked that much since, who knows when!  During conference Amber also baked us a small bakery worth of homemade goodness.  She is a bit of a whiz in the kitchen!  Her pumpkin cookies single handedly ruined all of my previous efforts at sliming and trimming, but what good is life if one cannot enjoy pumpkin cookies with frosting in October?!  
• Turned 34.  I think that's okay.  At least I'm not 35!  Yikes, that sounds totally old.  Totally.  
• Ran 18 miles on Saturday.  It was so much better than my 17 mile run.  I was so relieved.  After my 17 mile run I was worried that I wasn't a marathon runner anymore.  This one felt good, not great, but good.  I'll take that! 
• Substitute taught two days.  Volunteered at the book fair one day. Volunteered in Jane's class room one day. I think I was at the school everyday.  I'm happy about that.
• Finished a quilt!  It might be the sweetest quilt you've seen.  

This Week:

• Blog about my big birthday sewing room makeover.  Darin outdid himself.  It's amazing!!  
• Make something amazing come out of my new amazing sewing studio!  Amazing!
• Mail some stuff.  Why is this so hard for me to do?!
• Two days of subbing already on the agenda.  
• I need to re-listen to conference.  Turns out I was kind of sleepy last weekend.  Though we fully listened to a couple of the sessions, I can't really remember anything.  That means I wasn't really listening.  This time I'll listen during the day, while sewing stuff.  I can concentrate so much better that way!  Me, listening to conference on the couch= naptime.
• Get a massage on Tuesday.  I must do this!!  If not Tuesday, then Wednesday.  If not Wednesday, than Thursday.  You get the picture.  It must happen.
• Saturday, 20 mile long run!  Brace myself.  
• Probably a million other mom-related items should be on this agenda.  I just can't think of them all right now.  Maybe I should just have on my agenda, "be the world's best mom".  That should cover my bases, right?!

Ie Li:

Last Week:

• Fell in love with William.  I looked at his pictures over and over.  He is just the roundest, cutest baby!  Congrats to Ana and Zack!
• Went apple picking and to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum with Michi and all the kids on Wednesday.
• Ran three times, including a six-miler on Friday.
• Painted the kitchen mirror black.
• Left the kids at home with Michi and flew to LA with Steve on Saturday morning.  My dad picked us up and we met my mom at the temple to perform some family temple work.  We went straight to Will K.'s wedding after that.   It was a beautiful day and Will and Joanna made a very handsome couple.  Steve and I were two of eight guests that were not full Asian.  :)
• Finished The Good Earth. It's amazing what you can do on a five hour plane ride with no kids.  I read and slept. 
• On Sunday, we came home to our children, an apple pie, hand apple pies, applesauce, folded laundry, and a smiling Michiko!  Amazing.
• Said goodbye to Michiko and boys.  It was sad.

This Week:

• Run
• Wake up early everyday
• Host book club
• Stephen's pumpkin patch field trip
• Mei Li's school fall festival

Rachel:

Last Week

• Used a ton of farmer's market veggies to make beef stew, roasted vegetable pasta, cauliflower soup and pizza last week(s).  That's a lot of not eating out!  Go us.
• Took a pizza making kit and cupcakes to a family in our ward who needed it.  It was a fun project.
• My conference weekend was blown to pieces by a frustrating co-worker.  I found out Friday said co-worker is quitting after 10/15.  Wow!
• Got to talk to everyone on Mom's bady on a family conference call.
• Bought new tires for Ken's truck
• Steve Jobs died!  I was totally surprised and sad about it all.  He had a huge impact on our world and, in an interesting way, on the growth of the church.  Big deal.
• Went to the Everybody Wins info lunch and signed up.  
• JRCLS Religious Liberty dinner at Mayflower Hotel downtown on Thursday night.  I left the office at 5pm and we didn't get there until 7:40pm.  Terrible traffic.  
• We babysat our friend's baby on Friday while the friend interviewed at Deloitte. 
• Helped Ken apply to a great real estate consulting job at Jones Lang LaSalle.  Do you know anyone who works there?
• Spent Saturday working and sleeping and NOT apple picking like I wanted to.  That was sad.

This Week

• Last week of busy season.  I really don't want to work Saturday but I probably just shouldn't get my hopes up.
• For heaven sake we must finish our taxes.  What is wrong with me.  
• Finalize our photo outfits.  Photos are on Sunday afternoon in MD.
• Last week we were asked to do the decorations for the ward Halloween party on Oct 29.  Wow!  Big job.  I've got tons of ideas and I'm really excited.  (Actually, Ken was given the assignment through the Elder's quorum.  But seriously?  I think I'll take the lead on this one.)  What should Ken and I wear as a costume???
• Light the Night walk for Leukemia on Saturday evening.  Steve is the office rep so we gotta support.
• Bday party for a friend's 1 year old on Saturday in MD. Gift ideas?
• Get a manicure and eyebrows waxed.

Christine:

Last week:  

- Worked Monday-Thursday.  I guess a lot of people were sick or just not showing up and they kept calling me in to pick up shifts.  I was happy for the hours, but they weren't really the best hours.  Monday night I was there until 2am getting the store ready for a possible visit from some of the top guys in the company (which never happened) and then closed the other three nights as well.  

- Made a last minute trip to spend the weekend in Morgantown.  Got to finally experience some WVU football which was a lot of fun and have otherwise been enjoying the great fall weather and gorgeous fall foliage.  

- Worked more on getting settled into my bedroom.  I think I finally have everything organized and in its place, now maybe I get to move onto the fun part of decorating a little.  

- Didn't run, didn't study.  Total fails there.  

Next week: 

- Work Monday and Tuesday.  

- One of my best friends from home, Kim Chau is coming to visit me!  She gets in Tuesday night and leaves Friday early morning, so it's a quick trip, but I'm so excited and sure it'll be full of some great times.  

- Jon's coming to town for the weekend.  WVU football has a bye week, so it's an acceptable weekend for him to leave Morgantown for the weekend :) 

- Not a whole lot on the agenda for the week, but I'm sure it'll be a very full, busy, fun week!

Sarah:

Last week:

• Put on our last Rooftop Concert for the season. It was a little dicey there because of the weather, but we finally made the decision to move down to the lower level and it all worked out just fine. I was so convinced the weather would clear up so that was a little disappointing - and quite remarkable how totally accurate the forecast was this time. The Lower Lights played great as usual with some die hard fans coming in from Arizona, St George, and Seattle.
• Sewed curtains for the living room - I was totally going to hire someone to do it, but in the end ran out of time so it was fastest to just do it myself - and of course after doing it myself I thought that would have been pretty ridiculous to pay someone to sew those straight hems. I still want to add grommets to the top, but I'm pretty happy with how it's all turned out
• Hosted Webb & Laurel, and Stephanie, Peter & Tommy here for the weekend. The boys had such a great time riding bikes, playing, and just hanging out together - those experiences together are priceless. Webb, Laurel & Stephanie were super helpful watching the kids all day while Scott and I were busy setting up for the concert. It was a very low-key weekend but so great to spend time together.
• Pulled an all-nighter on Thursday on purpose to catch up on a work project. Pulled an all-nighter on Friday quite by mistake when Huck woke up ready to play at 2am when we were going to sleep after the concert.
• Let the fam in on our big news - we're having a baby in June. We're mostly scared and a little excited. Other than being extra hungry, I'm feeling totally fine.

Next week:

• Start Christmas shopping. Wouldn't that be nice? I really want to.
• Catch up on general mothering - laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning. Everything fell by the wayside last week
• More work catchup - hopefully doesn't have to be an all-nighter this time if I make good use of my days.
• Run & yoga a couple times
• Decide/purchase ticket for Richmond Nov 12
• Pull out fall decorations - do we have any?! Maybe we need to get some.