Fall, Baseball, and a Hurricane.

 One of the coolest things about living here is the foliage.  At first when you get here I'll admit it feels a bit prehistoric and at moments like the forest will swallow you up.  I went for a run along and trail in the forest when we first got here and kept thinking something was going to jump out at any moment and eat me.
But with the end of summer an anticipation started.  You are surrounded by leaves, millions, billions of leaves and you knew they would all change color.  It started so gradually that you kept second guessing whether it was actually happening or if it was your imagination.  But slowly the forest of green caught on fire.  It was really beautiful, mainly the variety of colors that makes it so spectacular.  Fall here is an event.

We enjoyed the extra warm weather and the boys played Fall Baseball which was a treat.  Austin decided he wanted to be a switch hitter and so he started to practice batting left handed.  We would practice here and then after weeks of nagging his coach he finally let him hit a few at practice.  But he would never let him during the games.  So Austin, at his last at bat of the year without even confirming with the coach just went into the box to bat left handed.  It was awesome, I would never have been that brave.  He took a couple swings and then got a solid single batting left handed.  He is now officially a switch hitter.

 
 

 

 
 

We had the opportunity to drive to Baltimore MD a couple weeks ago as Todd had a conference there.  It was a horrifically long drive.  We forget at times that unlike California this place was here before cars, and thus roads that make it easy to get from here to there.  So where 90 miles in California is no biggie, here it takes hours and heaven help you if there is traffic.  So after suffering through driving for what felt like 6 hours to go 150 miles we made it.  Our hotel had a pool which was all we really cared about and we were able to watch a Giants game so it made it super fun for the kids.

It's really rough being our kids. 

 

 

This was the coolest Barnes and Noble ever it was a converted
150 year old power plant and it was just amazing.

 

Hurricane Sandy:

So I've never been through a hurricane and with "The biggest storm of the century" barrelling our way I heeded the warnings and got us prepared as we could be.  I went to the store and for the first time saw empty shelves.  If you have never seen that it's a real eye opener as to how scary it could be if you all the sudden were cut off from your food/water supply.  Anyhow, we got everything we needed and braced ourselves.  It seemed to take FOREVER, the forecasts seem to keep moving it forward, tomorrow night it will get here. As we watched the radar and these huge storms, one from the West(a huge cold front) and Sandy for the East come what looked like directly at us we were amazed to see that nothing ever got here.  Literally huge bands of rain would be coming at us at like 30mph from the East and just suddenly stop about 15 miles from here.  Then snow began to fall in the hills West of here but it too would halt about 10 miles away.  It was almost scarier because we were surrounded by this awful weather and flooding and torrential rain with wind and yet here we were outside playing catch.  Seriously the leaves in front of our house never blew away.  The real kicker was that on every news broadcast there Charlottesville would be right smack dab in the midst of all the chaos and yet nothing was actually happening.  For whatever reason the weather here was absolutely calm.  I even went for a run last night in the rain.  Now I can say I ran in a hurricane.

Currently under "Hurricane and Blizzard" warnings

 

During the hurricane.

That's snow...not too far away.

 

My Family is crazy and it's the best.

 My cousin Joel got married on Labor day and we were there to celebrate with him.  Surely we embarrassed him but alas he invited us so that's what you get.  I was able to go as my wonderful mother in law volunteered to come watch the kids so I could go.  I left from the Carlottesville(hereby known as C'ville) airport which is very small and easy to use.  My flight was uneventful other than it was a 10 minute flight to DC so about 2 minutes after we were told we could use electronic devices we were asked to turn them off for landing.  My Aunt had rented a very cool old mansion in Solsolito that was built by some gangster early in the century.  It was fun to hang out and see the family.  My mom, aunt, cousin, grandma, and I all piled in the car and drove what turned out to be around the corner to get our nails done.  It appears that is where we began laughing and did not fail to stop until I got on a plane 48 hours later to go home.
Our family is funny.  Funny haha as well as the other "funny."  But I like to think that years of both success and failure has taught some of us that laughter is truly the best medicine and we seem to have "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" philosophy when it comes to dishing it out.  So it should come as no surprise that on the rare occasions we are together we spend a great deal of time laughing, mainly at the expense of others, but sometimes it's the only funny thing around.  To start with my uncle Joe had back surgery days before the wedding.  He obviously felt so much better that he was dancing around like someone who had sampled too many of their pain pills.  We were happy to see him feeling so much better after what seems like years of him moving slowly and obviously suffering.  The next bit of funniness was thanks to the groom himself.  At my wedding 14 years ago he had taped his nose up and pranced around while helping set up for my wedding.  My mom decided it would be a good idea to return the favor and as there is power in numbers we all did it.  I am not sure if the bride or her family understood our humor but the brides parents laughed along with our silliness.  We tried to be well behaved and in the end it was a beautiful wedding and I am really happy for my cousin and his new wife.

My cute cousin and Aunt 

My cousin the amazing cook made the foot for the rehersal dinner...it was super yummy.

Joel at my wedding 14 years ago taped his nose up and danced around...so we decided it would be fun to do again, personally I think we all look good, if not a little stuck up as my mom put it.

My brother shocking each other with the dog's shock collar....mature.

Hayden wondering where we are going.

My dad, in ski socks

My brother in short socks...genetics?

Flying home with a skate board.