Pumpkins and Fall

I love this time of year in Wisconsin, all the trees are burning with bright colors and the weather is cold enough for hot cocoa but warm enough that we still haven't succumbed to turning our furnace on yet. It is football season and Brad has started on his 2nd year of MCW intramural flag football. So when I was watching his game this weekend I was then inspired to go out and take some pictures of the beautiful leaves, and after Brads test was over I go him to come out with me to take some pictures together (he was so good to indulge as I dragged him out for a photo shoot). We also managed to round up people two days before Halloween to carve some pumpkins. Brad actually choose a squash this year, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Now that our pumpkins are ready I feel officially ready for Halloween this year.

Here is from the football game and my inspiration

The leaves under this bright yellow tree were the perfect colors

Here are some pals that stopped by to carve it up!

Happy, but Spooky

Brad's creative juices flowing on this one

This was the sweet yoda "white pumpkin" by the Nances that actually had yoda's texture too

Pumpkin friends

Midnight Soccer

It made me feel non-sensical. My whole life I have been very practical, even in collage when everyone else was out having fun I had to get my homework done before I would let myself join the party. And even more important is getting an adequate amount of sleep; I would sleep 9 hours every day if I had the time. Brad knows that I am a stickler for getting to bed at 10:30 sharp, there is nothing to talk to me about after that time because all I can do is watch the clock and count down how much sleep I am loosing. So playing a soccer game starting at midnight? This is something I have never imagined I would ever do for fun. But here I find myself deciding to throw my good senses out the window and do something irrational , something that I don’t have much time in my life left where I even can do it, and put that before my precious sleep. Though this was my first time playing real indoor soccer I already felt too old and out of shape for it (or maybe that was because it was midnight and my body was trying to sleep), luckily this quick pace game includes lots of subbing. I learned last night sometimes it is okay to do what you enjoy in the middle of the night even when you have to get up the next morning and go to work, at least you are living and not just working.

P.S. and Brad did score a goal for me

Saturday Corn Maze

So I am notorious for being busy around here, and last Saturday was one of those days were both Brad and I just went from one thing to another without a chance to even catch our breath. I tried to explain to Brad that this happened because there are only so many days that he is not studying so I try to take full advantage of them. In the morning Brad was speaking at a Republican sponsored Pro Life conference (as President of the Pro Life interest group at MCW). And I ran a 5K run/walk sponsored by the Relief Society. From that we took a trip to the Temple (and for anyone going down there the construction is still bad). Being late because of the construction we headed strait for the corn maze with the Kagies and didn't get there till right before it got dark. With enough light to explore the pumpkin patch, barn and farm animals it was pitch black when we started the corn maze. We were lucky enough that they had some flashlights we could borrow. This was the first corn maze Brad and I had done, we have been to them before and just played around and we have been to many haunted corn mazes, but this time we actually did the maze. It was pretty fun, but I found myself being scared that people would jump out at me (too many haunted mazes I guess). We finished off the day with watching our favorite Cougars play.

We found some pretty crazy looking pumpkins (okay squash)

The sun setting behind the corn

There was also these crazy turkeys that were posing for us

This is when we started (we came out an hour and a half later)

Marquette Campus

So last week we went and did some sightseeing around Marquette campus. Thanks to Meghan’s post about free museum day on Saturday we decided to hit up the art museum on Marquette campus and then explore from there. We learned two things about the art museum there; first it is always free so you can go anytime you want and second, the current exhibition is called Jump Cut Art featuring social/political/historical issues inspired by the Pop Art movement (let’s just say we weren’t in there for very long). There was another attraction found on campus though, the Saint Joan of Arc Chapel. The chapel was built in the 15^th century in France, rebuilt several times and shipped to the United States and eventually ended up at Marquette. The legends say that Joan of Arc prayed at this chapel. It was actually a pretty spiritual experience to be inside the chapel so rich in history.

Here is an example of the art found at the art museum...

Here is the inside of the chapel


Brad is standing at the entrance looking knightly

Here is "Mr. Marquette" in front of the chapel

And this is just one of the buildings that I thought looked cool.