Pumpkin Season!

After letting our pumpkins sit outside for a week, we finally carved them yesterday! We have started a little tradition here in Kansas -- every Halloween we carve pumpkins with Karrie and Austin. It's a lot of fun doing the festivities with another couple. Enjoy the pictures!

As you can see, Austin was hard at work carving their pumpkin.

Karrie taking out all the lovely guts!

I'm not sure...

This was the thickest pumpkin I've ever carved.  Just look at the top part right there!

Eric was the only one who didn't trace a picture.  I guess his creative juices were flowing!

Look how cute we are!

I love how focused all of us are on our pumpkins. 

Traditional "gut" picture. I may have lost my pumpkin's guts...or I forgot to take the picture? You decide.

After much time carving, here are the finished products! From left to right: Eric's, mine, and Karrie and Austin's. 

And because Eric's pumpkin just looked like two slits, we had to get some light on the pumpkins. 

Pumpkin face and Iron Man. 

And of course, here they are on our porch. I love having a porch and being able to put our pumpkins there! I can't wait until we have an actual house. 

Johnson Farms Pumpkin Patch

I had never been to a pumpkin patch and wasn't really sure what it entailed (besides the obvious pumpkins). But around here, I kept hearing "pumpkin patch" come up. Eric found a 2 for the price of 1 entry fee to the Johnson Farms Pumpkin Patch, so we decided to give it a whirl!

Eric received AMAZING reviews from his friend at school on how great it is to go pick your own produce. Since we'd like to eat healthy, we thought it would be cool to get fresh vegetables.

For awhile, all we were able to pick was what you see in this picture. It is a lot harder than it looks to pick produce! Especially if you have no idea what you are doing.

Eventually we started eavesdropping on people to see where more types of vegetables were. For example, we heard someone tell another member in their party, "There's broccoli over here!" Eric and I immediately started heading over to where they were looking, and we approached a bunch of plants. We didn't see any broccoli. After a little confusion, Eric pushed aside a leaf and looked in the center of one of the plants. What did he find? A bundle of broccoli!! We were so excited about our discovery! The broccoli was a success, but there were still many plants we left without ever finding out what they were for.

After coming to the conclusion that we will never be farmers, Eric admitted that his friend (the one who gave the raving reviews) would have loved to be a farmer himself! Ha. Note to self: Take recommendations from people who have similar interests to your own. Picking our own produce was still fun to try, even though it was a little frustrating! 

In addition to the produce, there were many fun things to do (mainly for kids). The kids could play on these barrels of hay, pet animals, go on a hay ride, etc. We didn't do any of those things, but who doesn't love a good picture opportunity? 

Eric made a lifelong friend... 

while I showed off my love for broccoli. 

Then of course we had to pick our pumpkins!!

It was quite the dilemma for Eric to find the "perfect" pumpkin (see it in his face). 

There were so many choices!! Eric eventually came to a decision, ending our pumpkin patch adventures! I'm sure we'll go back, but maybe not pay to go inside the farm until we have kiddos to enjoy the activities. 

PuMpKiN rUn

Last Saturday Eric and I participated in a 5k Pumpkin Run. Eric's been running constantly over the past couple months, so it was a great way to track his progress. As for me? I haven't ran or done too much physical activity lately...but I've always wanted to do a 5k for some odd reason (even though I hate running with a passion). Consequently, Eric was lucky enough for me to tag along!

There were about 3,500 runners. Eric and I started the race together, but I knew he could go a lot faster so I told him to run ahead of me. He finished the 5k in 26 minutes and 24 seconds!! This put Eric finishing in 276th place out of 3,500 people!! That is an awesome finish by my hubby. Here he is crossing the finish line!

And this is me crossing the finish line, wanting to pass out! Yes, I took so long that Eric went back and finished with me. I was originally going to walk the 5k, but I made the mistake of starting with Eric so I felt a lot of peer pressure to run with everyone else. I ran (aka jogged) and walked off and on. I finished in the middle of the pack in 40 minutes and 18 seconds! Not TOO bad for never running!

Check out the sweet shirts we got for running the race! We also received free adjustments and snacks after we completed the 5k.

We didn't take any pics before, so here we are afterwards. I was EXHAUSTED and Eric was doing fine as he usually does after running. I couldn't even lift my legs for a couple days afterwards. Note to self: At least try to do some sort of cardio before running a 5k.

We were glad that we were able to participate in this community event. It was definitely cool to see what a 5k was like and to do something I don't normally do.

In a couple more weeks Eric will be moving on to run a 10k! I will be the cheerleader at that event :)

And finally...here's a note from ERIC WALKER:

I just wanted to say that I'm so proud of Cindy for running this 5k with me. The course was pretty terrible considering how many up-hill sections. I was very impressed that she finished with such a great time, and on top of that she didn't even do much training! Although she did well, I don't think I can convince her to run the 10k with me in a few weeks, ha!

S'mores and More

Eric and I have been wanting to go camping all summer long. The only problem is it's been freakishly hot here in Kansas for the last 3 months. We got a little break from heat exhaustion status, so I took a day off of work and we went camping.

We drove about an hour to Clinton Lake. We chose the primitive campsite because, let's just face it, the only reason we go camping is for the s'mores.

The campsite was COMPLETELY deserted when we arrived. Apparently we are the only ones who like to rough it. A few trucks drove by throughout the day and a couple people parked and slept in their cars, but no one pitched a tent with us. I didn't mind. But it was a little creepy when people would drive up and you didn't know what they were going to do.

We arrived around noon and pitched our tent. Eric and I found a shovel someone left, so we invented a game called shovel ball. There are these green, round things that fall from the trees the size of baseballs (I have no idea what they are or what they are called) so Eric and I each picked one and took turns throwing them with the shovel. Our goal was to make the ball into a fire pit. Since no one was around, we had tons of fire pits to be our "holes." We ended the game tied!

After shovel ball, we still had a few hours before dinner time so we decided to hike.

There are hiking trails that go on for miles right by the campsite. It was a gorgeous walk, but I don't know how many people really go on it because we hit a few ginormous spider webs. After walking quite a while, we spotted a huge snake. That was that. I turned around and walked as fast as I could back to camp.

Eric chopped the wood into smaller pieces in preparation for his masterpiece.

Look at that teepee style! Can't you tell he was a boy scout?

We have a fire starter in our emergency preparedness kit, so we wanted to see if it actually worked. After a little determination, Eric got some fire on that paper.

For dinner we roasted hot dogs. They tasted delicious!

Then for the main course...S'MORES!!

I created what is now known as the "mega s'more." Rather than having chocolate that won't seem to melt, we decided to put roasted marshmallows on each side of the chocolate bar. It was divine. I recommend the mega s'more to any and every camper.

And for the remainder of our trip, we played games. This was Phase 10 dice. Great game, by the way. And look how much Eric loves me!

I love our annual camping trips, even if they are only for a night!

A celebration is in order

Remember this guy?

This is Eric on his first day of school at Cleveland Chiropractic College ONE YEAR AGO. We now have 2 things to celebrate:

#1: As of today, Eric has officially completed his first year of chiropractic school. I am so proud of him and all his hard work! Only 3 more years to go (hopefully a little less). Keep up the good work hubby!

#2: Eric got a JOB! For the next year he will be a Campus Ambassador at his school. This means Eric will be giving tours to prospective students and possibly take a recruiting trip to BYU in the Spring.

Eric actually beat out quite a few students for the job. I had no doubt that he would be offered the position because he has such a warm personality and is so great at talking to people--a perfect fit for his new job. The best part is, he'll be paid in scholarships! That should help our taxes a smidge :)

All in all, things are looking good for us. We are excited to see what this next year has in store for our little family.

Sporting Kansas City

On Wednesday, Eric and I were invited to go to our first Major League Soccer game -- thank you Jimmy and Natalie! I can't say I'm a huge soccer fan or anything, but I was excited to do something different in the Kansas City area. Although I wasn't too stoked for the "soccer" aspect of the event, we ended up really liking it!

The soccer stadium is BRAND spanking new. We had general seating so we chose to sit behind the goal (box?). It was an awesome view when the ball was on our side of the field.

Here we are at our first MLS game!

Eric got really into the game. Who knew he liked soccer so much? I sure didn't. I think it comes from his 2 years in Mexico City.

Speaking of Mexico City...the game was between Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City. The guy in the left in blue is Eric's favorite player from Mexico (who now plays for KC) -- Omar Bravo.

Here's little Omar again. What a stud! Eric got a kick out of watching him play. I had a favorite player too, I just can't remember who it was. Maybe next time.

We have now been to 3 Royals games and 1 Sporting KC game. What's our favorite? Sporting KC! I didn't think I'd be a soccer fan, but there is just so much more to look at than at a baseball game. We will be going back for sure.

Wish List

Yesterday, Eric and I wandered into Best Buy and I found this:

We talked to a worker about it for probably an hour. Now I think about buying this camera and learning how to use it all the time.

So if anyone out there is feeling nice, I would love to see a little surprise on my doorstep one day. Thanks.

Full of Love

I gotta say, year 3 is my favorite year of being married so far. I had an epiphany on marriage a few weeks ago...it holds true for Eric and me, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate.

The first year of marriage feels like you're playing house. You are still getting to know each other and are so worried about having a "happy" marriage that you try not to get into too many arguments.

In the second year of marriage you're not afraid to get on each other's nerves. I believe this year can make or break a couple. If you can work through misunderstandings and master your art of communication, I think any marriage can be successful.

As for year 3, you know your spouse inside and out and (thanks to year 2) you know exactly what to do to resolve conflict in the household. Things are pretty straight forward. You have the tools to either tick off your spouse or make them happy. It all depends on what you choose to do.

So back to my marriage and why I love year 3...

Last week I got to work and received an e-mail first thing in the morning. The e-mail said I received flowers and needed to pick them up from the mail center. I couldn't think of anyone who would send me flowers except for Eric, but I was also confused as to why he was getting me flowers. I went to pick them up, and as I opened up the box I read a note that said, "Just because."

How cute is that?