A Listography of Updates

Hey guys! There haven't been much big events I've had to blog about, just small activities and celebrations here and there. I've compiled a bulleted list (since that's all the rage these days) of quick highlights:

• We participated in a pumpkin carving contest with our bible study group. I gave up after taking out the pumpkin guts, and our friend Simeon helped carve out my Harry Potter pumpkin for me. Russ went for the abstract. Neither of us won. 

Top Left: Russell's (one-eyed octopus with a top hat); Top Right: Mines (Harry Potter);
Bottom: All the pumpkin submissions. The ninja turtle on the far right won.

• I was sick on Halloween so Russ and I were unable to do the original plans we had on that day. But we were still able to stop by Joe and Kristen's place for about an hour to celebrate Halloween/Oktoberfest. Complete with outfits!
  

  

  Heinrichs!



• I submitted my first short story in my creative writing class. Luckily, we can do it anonymously. When they were reading it out loud in class, I was starting to get woozy and I was sure the professor would stop reading and say it was a horrible story with horrible writing and whoever wrote it should get up and get out. But, none of that happened. They liked it! There were parts they said needed to be improved on (which I totally agreed with) but overall it wasn't horrible. The story was about tomatoes.


• Russ and I are now school loans debt-free!!!! THIS IS EXCITING. This year, my goal was to get rid of those school loans and we reached that goal one month in advance :) We can now splurge....or not, since holidays are coming. But we did have a nice dinner in a French restaurant as a celebration.


• We are also traveling over the holidays. We'll be gone for about a month in total. We've booked hotels and stuff already. So excited.



• Oh, and here's a random picture of me. I really liked my outfit so I texted it to Russell. He said I looked very London...

Pumpkin Patch

Though the weather here in Southern California still insists on being summer, fall activities are taking place nonetheless. This Saturday, Russ and I went to a pumpkin patch.

This is the 2nd time I've ever been to a pumpkin patch. The first time I went, Russ and I were still dating and he found out I'd never carved a pumpkin before. 

...Actually, now that I think about it, there was a first time before that first time. I was in sixth grade and my teacher told my classmates and I to bring some hay to class for a brick-building project. I remember telling my parents I needed hay so we went to the pumpkin patch where I stayed for a few minutes to pick up some hay from the ground that was thrown around for decoration. But I don't count that experience as a first time experience. That was purely an educational experience.

Anyways, back on subject. This pumpkin patch experience we looked at pumpkins, watched little kids pet baby goats, bought ice cream from an ice cream truck, and went through a dying corn maze. It was advertised as a "10-foot tall" corn maze but that must have been from a couple years ago. You can tell the California drought hit farms hard because the corn maze was lacking in, well, corn. It was kind of just a path through dead corn plants. But still fun and filled with lots of laughs with my man.

Picking pumpkins