September 2013: A kick off to North Carolina's best season

Fall really is the best season in North Carolina.  Days are warm rather than scorching, humidity levels begin to decrease and it's a perfect time to hit the beach and play outside.  We did a lot of both this fall, so much so that I got rather behind in updating it all.  Here is my attempt at catching up on 2013 before 2014 arrives.

A shift in fall schedules brought daily routine back into our lives.  Clark started school at the Raleigh School of Nurse Anesthesia, which meant no more night shifts!  However, that also meant that he was gone all day Monday through Friday, which was a big change for me.  I also picked up few more classes at Durham Tech, teaching two nights and two mornings each week.  Between work, school and church callings and fall play, our weeks filled up fast.

We honored Labor Day with a trip to the beach with the Hansens.  Emmett is always ecstatic at the beach and having some of his favorite friends there made it all the better.  Unfortunately we did a lousy job of getting any group shots, but here are a few of Emmett in his happy place.

Unfortunately on one of the not-so-warm days, Emmett decided to turn the water feature at Guglhupf into a swimming pool during a little birthday breakfast outing with some dear friends.  What started out as innocent splashing, soon became wading, then full on immersion.  I'm sure the other people at the restaurant were judging my lack of parenting, but he was having a great time...until it was time to go and started to rain.  Then it got a little chilly.  

 Artwork by 2-year-old Emmett.  I told him to make a face and he came up with this.  Pretty impressive, though it hasn't been repeated since...

We enjoyed lots of time at nearby parks.  If you look closely, you can see some of the results of Emmett's adventurousness.  Twice in less than a month this boy split open his chin.  One was fairly deep and required Dermabond (thank you, Mark Hansen); the second just got a bandaid.

 Emmett was the cutest little helper when we were assigned to clean the church--helping with the windows and correctly placing all the hymnbooks in the chapel.

 Although I wasn't planning on doing any canning this year, a friend brought me a whole bushel of Winesap apples from Tennessee.  They weren't great eating apples, so I ended up making a whole bunch of applesauce and apple pie filling.

 Living on the east coast can sometimes feel pretty far away from family and friends, so when Hilary and C got a job in South Carolina we felt like we won the lottery!  One of my best friends in a neighboring state?!  We can see each other every other month if we want to!  We made the 3.5-hour drive to see them one weekend late in September.  We got to see their new house and neighborhood, explore the town and, of course, go to the beach.  Even though it was a bit cool that evening, it didn't stop Emmett from getting fully immersed and then needing some snuggling time with mom to warm up.  Really though, the very best part of the trip was just being able to talk and talk and have that be the primary means of entertainment.  Ruby and Emmett hit things off well and are sure to be good little buddies.  Hoping to repeat weekends like this often.

 One of my favorite beach pics.  Such joy!

 And then a little surprise!

This boy loves his "nuggles" with mom. 

Time with Elmo

Another one of our autumn activities included an apple orchard excursion.  We went with a group of friends from the ward and enjoyed tasting freshly pressed apple juice, sampling different types of apples (I discovered that I like Golden Delicious apples),  and taking a hay ride through the orchard.  We did not, unfortunately, enjoy apple picking as the majority of the apples were rotting on the ground.  We "picked" our allotment of apples (3 per person) from a barrel of already picked apples.  Emmett's most memorable part of the day was definitely seeing the scarecrows with pumpkin heads.  He still talks about it...

 Emmett, Kimball, Eliza

 Spotting scarecrows

 His buddy Grant.  

 Lounging in the orchard.  Who is this kid??

Play time with Eliza