...and then it was October

As opposed to September, October felt like it was passing by too fast. Particularly for a student like me, October meant MIDTERMS - which I figured really meant "GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER OR ELSE". The overwhelming feeling of the need to get things done has never been so strong until I was both a student and a teacher. In a lot of ways, I was in my students' shoes and I know how terrible it feels to have half of the semester go by and you still do not have a clear picture of how things are going to turn out. So anyway, I felt like October was chasing me day in and day out.

Carl is one amazing fan. He surprises me sometimes. If you know Carl, you already know how easy it is for him to fall asleep. But what you probably didn't know is that Carl can not sleep soundly if he is in bed by himself. So when I needed to pull a couple of all-nighters to finally wrap up my first working draft for my thesis, it really meant a lot to me when he didn't even bother to convince me to sleep already. He also made sure that on those nights, I have my dose of caffeine in the form of a glass of Coke Zero. If you knew how I worked around my writing projects, you probably already know that I need my coke to stay up. Back in college, a 2-liter bottle would keep me up till 2 or 3 in the morning. That's how much I needed! But now, only a glass is enough to keep me writing until 10am the following morning. I guess I am all set for the long sleepless nights of parenthood hahahah!

Anyway, aside from the craziness of school and work, a couple of nice things happened in October... and we were able to spend some time with the most amazing friends that we have.

GENERAL CONFERENCE

1st weekend of October was General Conference. Like last year, Liz and Mhar and Aprilon visited us from California and Washington. A good friend from BYUH who now works in Thailand, Ernest, was with them this year. Jackie, from Liz and Mhar's SA ward was with them too. Kei and her husband Jerryl visited us too, all the way from Hawai'i. Zingeber was also visiting for General Conference with his whole family - they drove to Utah all the way from Vancouver! 

On Saturday, we met with most of our BYUH friends and had dinner and talked stories. To burn all the calories, we played Kinect Dance Central - and Zing would not bat an eye if that meant victory! Meeting and catching up with friends was amazing. It felt like nothing changed, just that now we didn't live so close to each other, or for some of us - with each other. Liz and I used to live in the same apartment. Carl and Zing were mission companions. Mhar and Ernest were almost housemates. Kei used to always hang out at our apartment in TVA. Friends make life interesting, to say the least.

Just like old times - except now, Kei is married :)

We love having people over!

Waiting in line, hoping for tickets to get in to the
Sunday Morning Session of General Conference

We didn't have tickets toall of the sessions and only some of us had tickets for a couple of sessions. We tried to wait in line for tickets, but we weren't very lucky. On Sunday morning, we listened to General Conference at the Tabernacle, and then at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in the afternoon. It was an edifying day, and we felt inspired and rejuvenated. General conference is spiritual therapy at its best.

FALL

When we moved to Utah, Fall was no longer just a semester. It was, in every color of the word - a BEAUTIFUL season. The colors are wonderful, I wish I had more pictures. I know, I am lame. 

Disclaimer: i did not take this photo - but this is
exactly how it looks like around these parts :)

Carl and I were having this conversation one time, and I said something like how my body has now been accustomed to the seasons - like I was excited for the changing of seasons and how that makes me feel that time is passing. The colors of fall are gorgeous. It has its own beauty, different from that of Spring when flowers are in bloom (and Spring is still my favorite). When the leaves start to fall on the ground, I get excited about many things, one of those being the holidays... which, here in the States, sort of kicks off with the costumes and sugar overdrive of Halloween!

HALLOWEEN

Growing up in the Philippines, Halloween was not really about costumes and candy corns and pumpkins. I kind of felt bad that I wasn't as enthusiastic as Carl about being in costumes. This year, we decided to dress up as rival NBA teams Celtics and Lakers (of course I was wearing my golden yellow Kobe shirt). 

On a higher note though, we carved our first pumpkin, EVER!

BEFORE

AFTER