October 2018

As the story goes, Washington Irving wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow based on the people and geography he knew from the Hudson Valley region of New York state. There is even a town there now called Sleepy Hollow (although its name originates after the story was written). In any case, I see a lot of the hallmarks of Halloween in the scenery here this time of the month: dark cold skies, dead leaves, vast pumpkin patches and spiderwebs highlighted by condensation from foggy nights. Aside from the spooky overtones, October has been a pretty month as fall colors set in, and we brace for the long cold winter ahead.

Becky's Birthday

This month, we had a couple things planned to celebrate Becky's birthday. One night, I stayed home with Alex so Becky could go out to dinner with some women from church and have a fun night out without husbands and kids. And I took the day off on her actual birthday to do some activities, which ended up being mostly house shopping. We met with our real estate agent to sign paperwork and put an offer on a house that we were interested in after looking at another house of interest that popped up that day. After that adventure, we went to a discount movie theater to see a matinee of Incredibles 2. I paid $6 to rent out the whole theater for us. Ok, actually we just happened to be the only ones in there. It worked out because Alex sat for some parts of the movie, but mostly just explored around the empty theater on his own. Since there was no one to bother, we just let him wander while we enjoyed the movie. Becky also had her tap class that night as well, so it was a busy day.

House Shopping

As noted, in our continuing search we put an offer on a house earlier this month that seemed like a good bargain for the area and size. Unfortunately, the sellers were inclined to sell it to someone else that they knew, but for whatever reason were still entertaining our offer, among others. Later this month, we stopped by an open house to see another house that was priced slightly above our budget, just to compare. So many of the houses we have been looking at have scary basements or are severely outdated. This one was significantly better in a lot of ways, but it did have a puddle in the basement, as we were visiting it on a very rainy day. That gave us some leverage to make an offer far below the asking price, which was accepted after a bit of Halloween negotiations. Now we move on to the next steps of inspections and further negotiations, and see if this contract holds together.

All Hallow's Eve

We had a church costume party and chili cook-off the weekend prior to Halloween. For Alex, we got the obligatory baby Jack-o-Lantern (kind of sounds like his full name) costume, which no parent can ever go wrong with. We didn't dress him up last year, so this was his first official costume. Becky brought out her Pippy Longstocking costume, and I went as Aaron Ralston again this year, using a sawed-off arm prop that I made a few years ago after 127 Hours came out and it was more relevant. This costume was practical though because I could put Alex in the backpack when he got tired. I won first prize for my costume, and Becky won second prize. Aside from that, we just carved some pumpkins and handed out candy to the grand total of two trick-or-treaters that came by our house. Next year, Alex will probably be old enough to appreciate the traditions more.

Family Photos

For the sake of making the annual Christmas card to send out later this year, we took some family photos at Chenango Valley State Park. We weren't the only ones there that day trying to capitalize on the modest fall colors with some staged photography. As it turned out though, the colors were much better a few weeks later, which is later than usual for these parts. Anyway, we got some decent shots this year that almost make it look like we have a toddler who holds still for photos. Of course, we do not, so we may throw a couple pictures on the Christmas card of us wresting with him too, just to keep it real.

For those family photos, and other photos and videos from October, see our album linked here.