October 2017

The garden kept me very busy in October! 

Scraps from salsa making:

 Fresh tomato soup headed for the freezer:

 Tomatoes to give to a co-worker:

 It's rare, but sometimes Noah has homework - and the glasses are fake, but he looks mighty fine in them!

 I've given up on growing my own pumpkins thanks to squash bugs, but these four came from the grocery store and it was still fun to process them into puree!

 After roasting in the oven:

 All the seeds and skins that came out of the food mill:

 Beautiful, golden orange fresh pumpkin headed for the freezer:

 Noah sang in an honor choir, so he left the school early on a Saturday morning with his teacher Mr. Voth and a handful of classmates. We went to the concert later that day:

 Rylee and my sister came too!

 It's a rare occurrence, but I actually baked cookies and they were delicious and it took all my self-control not to eat all of them!

 October makes for the best golden hour photos.

 The peanuts went strong all through October out in the garden!

 The castor beans were dazzling by fall, huge leaves and showy prickly deep red seed balls. They were a hassle to get started in spring, but a lot of fun to watch grow in summer and fall.

 The farmers got busy with sowing wheat in October.

 We took some friends along to Bethel's Fall Fest - check out the size of those monster cookies!! The bad news is that not long after I snapped this photo it started raining! That was pretty much the end of our Fall Fest for this year.

 The garden just keep going...and going....

  A friendly game of backyard football with our Smith friends.

 Levi and I were the only one's in our family to make it to the pumpkin patch this year. He had fun on the slide, then we found some pumpkins and that was about it - quick trip for us this year!

 Coffee, sunrise, front porch - all such good things, especially when they're put together!

 One of the highlights of October was meeting our newest nephew, Simon!

 Just when it was getting cold in Kansas, we flew to Phoenix and enjoyed the warm sunshine,

 and delicious food,

 and this little guy!

 We were all so taken with him - we almost fought over who could hold him next!

 I learned, that palm trees drop seeds and then little palm trees start to grow. I had no idea that a palm tree sprout looked like this! Bad news is, they send down a long tap root and so they can be very hard to pull out!

 We splurged on a brunch trip to Top Golf and my-oh-my was it a good time!

 We golfed, we passed Simon around, we ate and drank and had a lot of fun!

 Seriously, Sara and Josh have beautiful citrus trees in their yard - I am so envious! These grapefruit were just barely starting to ripen when we were there.

 Josh's dad, Captain Ned, was so kind and gave each of us a ride in his airplane!

 Some shenanigans happened while we waited for everyone to finish flying...

 And what a kind pilot Ned is - he didn't do any tricks or anything scary while I was in the passenger seat!

 After all that flying we stopped at In-n-Out for some amazing burgers and fries.

Later we went on a hike - the scenery was fascinating!

 And one of the highlights of the trip was a ladies outing to a restaurant that specializes in wine and bruschetta. It was absolutely beautiful and delicious. 

 We had such a good time meeting Simon, helping to take care of him and catching up with Sara and Josh and Grandma Schrag!
Here's Levi and Kreed celebrating another Goessel volleyball victory at the state tournament. They're such goofballs. :-)

 At the very end of October, Ben took me on a trip to Chicago to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary. Our favorite restaurant, Longman & Eagle, has rooms for rent above the restaurant, so we stayed at our favorite restaurant!

 Ben is busy studying the extensive drink menu.

 Oh my, the beauty and interesting flavors of their cocktails, yum! The fresh herbs just might be my favorite part.

 We got to Chicago in the afternoon, got settled into our room, had some drinks and then walked over to visit Andy, Lia and Ezra!

 We had seen him in September at Tim and Sue's, but he was much more talkative and relaxed at home (maybe not having Levi in his face all the time also helped.... :-)).

 Then we went back to Longman for dinner - and the lights were so dim I couldn't get a good photo of our food but it was just as beautiful as it was delicious!

 We got home in time to go trick-or-treating with the boys!

 Levi was Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean and Noah dressed up as a farmer.

Travelling a couple times in one month is not normal for us, so it certainly made the month feel like it flew by!