Barrus Bunch: Let October BEGIN

I love Halloween time, not quite as much as Christmas, but I think it is so much fun. I already have my decorations up and it seems like the festivities are already starting. We started off the month with General Conference which was wonderful, I felt like missionary work was discussed A LOT! If you didn't know the church just started a new media initiative in a few areas, and DENVER is one of them. As a Stake we have been strongly encouraged to create profiles on mormon.org which the church will use to create video commercials from the ones that they choose. Anyway it was interesting to write out why I have a testimony of the church and try to share it with someone who will be looking at the church from an outsiders perspective. Growing up in the West, I have assumed that everyone has at least heard of the "Mormons," and knows some of our 'weird' values. My senior year of High School I traveled to Boston, MA for Nursing Forum, and my roommate was from down South. She had no idea what a 'Mormon' was, and I kind of explained a few things to her but that was it. I probably should have used that as a better missionary opportunity but I didn't. I know a lot of light has been shed on the church because of the current Presidential Candidates as well as the new Mormon Musical on Broadway. Publicity is great, because it creates curiosity in those who do not know anything about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. On Oct. 3rd the initiative started and I see on average 4 commercials a day from mormon.org. I will be honest it makes me emotional to see these commercials and watch as each person ends the commercial smiling saying, "My name is ____, and I'm a Mormon." If you haven't created your profile do it, or at least check out others that have been posted. Just click on mormon.org.

So, I have been wanting to go to a Pumpkin Festival this year since Gavin is actually old enough to somewhat enjoy it. Most places were doing theirs on Oct. 8th, which was fine, except we woke up to snow, rain and wind with 35 degree weather that morning. Oh well, were going anyways. We decided to head over to Punkin' Chunkin with a few of our friends. Luckily the majority of the activities were inside the building at the fairgrounds, or we would have left. But the punkin' chunking was outside (You know where the launch pumpkins from a giant slingshot/trebuche). And of course the website refrained from telling us that they would only launch pumpkins at 10:30, 1:30, and 3:30. We got there at 11:30. So we had to wait around for a few hours. Some activities were free, others not so much, and all of the food stations were outside so you had to wait in the cold to get anything. Gavin enjoyed playing in a corn pit, and looking at the different stations but he definitely got a restless. He played two bean bag tossing games and made the first one in both times, he's got great aim. Finally 1:30 rolled around and we stood in the freezing cold mud to watch. It was a contest from different groups who built their own trebuche's and then the last one was a professional, that launches like 2,500 feet, it was pretty awesome except there was so much snow that we couldn't see it.

Making corn husk dolls, that were wet in a freezing tent.

A few of us tried on Gavin's pumpkin hat.

Picking his prize.

Gavin LOVES Shrek!

Last night we carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening. Gavin loved the pumpkins themselves, and would have been happy to leave them that way, although he enjoyed the end product. He did not however, like the pumpkin guts. Zac would try to get him to touch it and he said NO! And then Zac would wipe some on his hand and he would cry. And then say he needed to wash his hands. This kid HATES to get his hands dirty, seriously I have a boy, he is not supposed to care! Zac made the Jack-O-Lantern and I did the ghost. I actually really enjoyed it this year it helped that I wore gloves while cleaning out the pumpkin :).

He has a spoon in his hand, it was the only way to get his hand in at all.

Zac has work the next two Saturdays while I have a baby shower, and a Zumba class and Trunk-or-Treat. Then we will go to Boo-at-the-Zoo and do our Halloween Party on the 29th. Then trick-or-treating and Zac's trick-or-treating at work on the 31st. It is going to be a busy month but I think we will enjoy it. I hope you enjoy your October too!