Sister Dalton in St. Louis

Yesterday I had a really neat opportunity! At church I am currently the first counselor in the Young Women presidency, which means I get to work with the 12-18 year old girls in our ward. It has been a lot of fun so far, but I still have a lot to learn. Yesterday Sister Elaine S. Dalton, the General Young Women President for the entire LDS Church, was in St. Louis to offer some training for Young Women presidencies in the area. I got to go to St. Louis with our ward Young Women president, and we had a great time. I even got to shake Sister Dalton's hand! She shared some neat experiences and advice with us. Later in the evening she had a special meeting where she spoke to all of the young women from the area. (Only six of our girls were able to make it, but they sure had a great time.) She talked about making good choices in our lives and reminded us that Heavenly Father knows each of us personally. It was a wonderful talk and a wonderful day! Sister Dalton recently spoke in General Conference. You can read or listen to her talk by clicking here. She is a really neat lady, and I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to listen to her words yesterday. Also at the meeting yesterday, I ran into my fun friends the Stowells from Charleston! They were my family away from home while I was at graduate school, and it was wonderful to see them again.

In other news, the Cardinals lost the other night, but then they won a game, so now they just have to win one more game to go to the World Series! We'll be cheering for them tonight!

Legends of October

This has been an exciting October with the St. Louis Cardinals playing in the postseason! They are up two games to one over the Milwaukee Brewers, although they are behind in their game this evening. Hopefully they can come back and pull out a win--they just need to win two more games to go to the World Series! Let's go Cardinals!!

Fall Photo Shoot

Since it was such a beautiful fall day, we decided to get some pictures of the animal children. Here they are!

October Baseball

Last week at this time, we didn't even know if the St. Louis Cardinals would make it to the Major League Baseball playoffs--they started out September eight-and-a-half games behind the Atlanta Braves for the Wild Card playoff spot, and it seemed impossible that they would even have a chance. It came right down to the wire, but with the Atlanta Braves' loss to the Philadelphia Phillies and the Cardinals' win over the Houston Astros last week, the Cardinals made it to the playoffs! Greg and I were so excited that we decided to head to St. Louis on Tuesday for game #3 of the Cardinals vs. Phillies playoff series. The teams were tied 1-1 in the best of five series, and we were hoping to see the Cards gain a game on the Phillies.

We had never been to a playoff baseball game before, and the atmosphere was quite electric! The afternoon started with the Budweiser Clydesdales making a couple of laps around the field. They were so cool to see! The stadium was absolutely packed, and people were cheering about everything.

Here are the two teams lined up at the beginning of the game.






It was a perfect afternoon and evening for baseball, and the game was very exciting. They handed out Cardinals towels to everyone when we entered the stadium, so it was like a sea of white every time someone made a big play with everyone waving their towels. Unfortunately the Phillies had the biggest play of the night when one of their players hit a 3-run home run, but the fans stuck by the Cardinals until the very end. A squirrel actually ended up stealing the show by running out onto the field. It turns out that he even showed up again the next night! Unfortunately the Cardinals lost the game 3-2, but at least it was very exciting. And they ended up winning the next evening to again tie up the series. They'll be going back to Philadelphia for game 5 tomorrow, and we hope that they win! Our first playoff game was so much fun!

In other news, the leaves have started changing colors here, and it looks so pretty! Here is a picture of our condo from down the street with the beautiful yellow tree that we get to see every time we come and go. I love fall!

The Great Pumpkin Patch

Today Greg and I did our favorite fall activity--we went to the Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur, Illinois! This fun tradition began in 2007 when Mom and I first discovered the Pumpkin Patch while I was going to graduate school. She and I loved it! Greg and I didn't make it to the patch in 2008 because that was when we were getting married, but we have gone in 2009 and 2010. It is such a fun, fallish place. The weather was a little gray and rainy today, but it felt like fall, and we basically had the whole place to ourselves, so that was nice.

Here is something they have not had before--the Great Pumpkin Patch version of American Gothic. I have named this picture "Pumpkin Gothic."







Here is the Wall of Squash. Now that is a lot of squash!








And here is the pumpkin patch. Look how misty and fall-like it looks! We also saw a lot of cute baby animals and pumpkin displays.






Here we are picking out our pumpkins.

















And here is the result of our pumpkin/squash picking. I think Big Spike approves. What a fun day we had! While we were in Arthur, we stopped at the Homestead Bakery at the Great Pumpkin Patch where we stocked up on all of our fall necessities: delicious jams, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, and fresh apple cider. And we, of course, stopped in Tuscola at our FAVORITE place to eat: Flesor's Candy Kitchen, home of the most delicious Reuben sandwich in the entire world. What a fun, fall day!