September Acres

Seems I'm not the only one decorating early this year.  I have never decorated this early.  I mean. we haven't even celebrated Thanksgiving yet!  But as I was going over my planner I realized that I needed to get started lickety split or I would be spending Christmas in an insane asylum. Take a look at some other bloggers who have started their decorating early this year: My Sweet Savannah Tatertots and Jello When do you usually decorate for the holidays?

Although it's cooled off a bit here, I'd hardly call it fall.  Even though the calendar says it is. Getting in the mood with an annual pumpkin carving party that friends of ours have. Do you recognize this as Winnie the Pooh? Working on Halloween costumes for Friday night. And anticipating all of the yummy treats we'll pick up Trick or Treating. Happy Halloween!

It's taken over a year but we were finally able to pay back the kindness of strangers yesterday on our way home from Phoenix. You may remember in December of 2012 we had a breakdown in the Virgin River Gorge on the Utah/Arizona border. Yesterday afternoon my husband noticed a truck & U-haul stopped on I10 about an hour out of Phoenix.  He didn't think too much of it until he saw a girl (probably in her twenties) walking along the side of the highway heading towards the next exit (about a mile away).  He pulled over and asked me to get out and meet her to see what she needed.  Luckily, she just ran out of gas so we took her to the gas station to get a can of gas and drove her back to her car. As it turns out, she is a newlywed whose husband was deployed right after their wedding last year and she was headed to their new duty station.  It was sure nice to be able to help her out and even better that we were able to help someone whose spouse is serving our country.

I joined my first book club this past August.  I did it for two reasons - my friend asked me and I thought it would be fun to read some books that are a little outside of my comfort zone.  Boy, did that happen.  I usually read books like 'Crazy Rich' (above) - interesting non-fiction types of books or easy reads like Elin Hilderbrand or Emily Giffin.   Our first book was 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn which I read when it first came out (and the third reason I joined the book club - since I had already finished the book I would at least be guaranteed that I'd finish one!)  Our next book was this one: I liked this one even if it was a bit far-fetched (in my opinion).  It was a quick read and a bit of a page turner. We have also read this: Another good one.  So far I was 3 for 3 and getting really into this book club thing! And then we read this: I didn't even finish it. We then read ' The Book Thief ' which was a little rough sta