Happy October 31st

Can you guess which is Ben's and which is mine?

Pumpkin Patch Fraud?

The cold weather has arrived! It has been brisk and windy this week in Williamsburg. We have a slight warming tomorrow during the day and this weekend, but it's still getting much colder at night (in the 30s).

Well, lots is going on here. Work is hectic for me and pretty stressful. Ben's job search is fully under way, and that's even more stressful. So far, the search has been pretty discouraging since the job market is absolutely awful right now. We hope after the election more jobs will open up once people "know" better what the next four years could look like economically and politically in our country. There are lots of interesting jobs out there, too, that he could get, but many do not pay very much, so it's a challenge of balancing many factors at once (the pay, the location, and the type of job). It's hard to live in such uncertainty, but we are truly thankful that I have a good job now and that Ben is working and getting both a little bit of money plus some really good experience.

We went to get our pumpkins a couple of weeks ago. They are still sitting on our porch and need to be carved--tonight!! Here are pictures from the pumpkin patch, which was called "Pumpkintown." Interestingly, the patch we got pumpkins at last year didn't have them this year because of lack of rain. How, we wondered, could a patch in the same area have pumpkins--and tons of huge, bright orange, healthy ones, at that--while the other didn't have any? Odd. Well, not so odd. It appears to us that while this patch we went to this year may have had a FEW growing in the vines, we saw huge crates of pumpkins stashed in the back that we think they purchased from somewhere else, and then brought them in and set them (scattered them artfully, that is) throughout the patch to make it LOOK like a nice happy pumpkin patch. Now, mind you, our theory about this COULD be wrong; in fact, we didn't piece these facts together until after we had bought our pumpkins and left. However, knowing this is very possibly what they did was a bit of a letdown. How WRONG to create a pumpkin patch from someone else's pumpkins, and make it appear that you grew them (and that many of them just so happened to have fallen off the vine), without telling your customers (many of whom are kids). I hope that our theory is actually wrong, but it does seem accurate based on what we saw there and the fact that they're one of (if not THE) only pumpkin patches in the area with pumpkins this year. If we are correct in our assumption, then it's certainly pumpkin patch fraud of the worst kind.

5-Year College Reunion & Atlanta

Below are some pictures of last weekend, as promised! One caveat: I uploaded these on Ritz Camera's Web site, and they have this blog-posting feature that I used. While it's rather annoying to have the Ritz ad on the photos (distracts from the picture itself), I must say it's SO easy to post this way, so at least for this time (since I feel a little lazy!), I'm going to use it!

Betsy (my roommate in college for 4 years), Courtney (roommate for 2 years), and me at Paladin Stadium - cheering Furman on to a Homecoming victory (they beat W. Carolina 28 to 21):

Ben and me at Furman, with the campus's lake and hallmark landmark, the Belltower, in the background:

The Belltower from the other side of the lake:

The Furman Rose Garden and gazebo:

A rose in the Rose Garden:

View of the Rose Garden from above:

The night before Homecoming - cloudy skies over the Furman Lake:

Me holding Betsy's 4.5-month-old, Luke, who is decked out for Halloween in his pumpkin outfit:

ATLANTA:

One main purpose of our trip was to help my mom celebrate her 50th birthday - so, here are some pictures from party day: (Her b-day is actually Oct. 22, but we celebrated early so as to combine with Furman's Homecoming/my 5-year reunion)

"50, here I come," says Mom, as she prepares to blow out candles on her pie (we had chess pie and apple pie from a local bakery):

Gift-opening - we (including extended family) gave my mom a scrapbook with page(s) from each person, telling her in various ways (mostly pictures) how much we appreciate her and all the fun memories we remember:

Ben, Matthew and me after his baseball team won Sunday:

Mother and daughter (also at the ballpark):

Pink Panther

Hi everyone; sorry we've been MIA for a couple of weeks. Things have been hectic with our 6-day trip to Atlanta/SC, followed by a very busy week at work. It's so nice that it's the weekend again, even if it IS rainy and cold! Anyway, we have a bunch of photos from our trip, some of which I'll post later. For now, though, here is a short little snippet of my youngest brother, Matthew, playing with his junior high band at a concert last Friday. They played several songs, one of which was the Pink Panther theme song (hence the pink shirts...), and I took this short video of it on my digital camera. (Matthew is seated in the back row playing the trumpet; he has blond hair, and although he is fourth from the right, in the bulk of the video he appears as the second from the right of the students you can see.)