Life and Times of the Walkers: Happenings 10/7-10/13

We had a busy week, as seems to be the usual thing now. The weather cooled down quite a bit so I rode my bike to campus every day this week, which was made nicer by the fact that the local schools all had a week-long Fall break -- never heard of that before -- and so there was less traffic on the roads. Plus, I went pretty early each day because I am trying to finish two papers by the end of the month.

I had another USTA match on Tuesday evening in Mayfield, and my partner and I won our match. It is fun to play real matches, but the action is kind of slow -- the way to win is to just get the ball back over the net and wait for the other team to make a mistake. Going for winners at this level just makes more unforced errors. That season is over for me -- kind of quick. I will continue to play with my friend from the ward, which is more fun and more of a workout anyway, until it gets too cold.

Friday morning, JJ and the girls went to a farm with some other people in the ward, (This one was much better than the last. The funny thing is that we passed this place on our way to the one the week before and there were a ton of cars and everything and we thought "Thank goodness we aren't going there with all those other people." Well, they knew something we didn't. This farm was much bigger and even though during the week they cater to schools and daycares, they let us just join in with a group so we enjoyed a storytime, hayride - although Claire was STILL disappointed because she really wanted a hayride and we ended up in a wooden wagon type ride instead of the one with the hay - pumpkin patch, corn grinder, wagons, swings, more corn boxes, tricycles, cows, goats, pigs, and other animals along with a corn maze. We went with two other mothers who each had two kids and we had a great time. Claire led us all through the corn maze and then picked out a green pumpkin to pick and take home. She also loved using the old equipment to get all the corn kernels off the cob and then grinding up the kernels and feeding them to the cows. I thought she would be afraid to feed the cows, but she wasn't at all, even after getting nipped twice. She was pretty worn out when we left. Rachel loved it too. She fell asleep while I was holding her when we ate lunch.) and then that evening, after they came back, we went to campus to run in the Homecoming Race, a 5K run around campus. JJ pushed the stroller and walked and ran, and I ran. I almost won my age division, 31-40 -- 3 of us -- but another guy was 30 seconds ahead of me. (We were obviously last, but I was pretty happy with how we did considering I was jogging/walking while pushing two more bodies. It brought back memories of the Potato Festival Run when I was 5 and last. The policeman here followed us along just like he did then - bringing up the rear. We had a good time though. Claire and I sang and waved at people along the way.) It was a fun race and nice
weather.

Saturday we left early to go to the temple in Nashville. It takes 2.5 hours to get to the temple, and we dropped JJ off for the 10:00 session and I took the girls to a park, and then went back and when JJ came out, I hurried in for the noon session. (It is a small temple and looks just like the Monticello Temple inside) It worked out great this time, but we heard that it is uncommon to be able to trade off like that. (I was just able to glance at the Celestial Room as I walked through to go out because I had to hurry so much so Paul could get in. I even had to repack my temple bag when I got home because I just threw everything in there.)When I finished, we tried to go to the zoo, but it was really crowded and about ready to close for some reason, so we went to the science museum which was really great, and it was hard to get Claire out of there. (It was fun for Paul and I too. They had a lot of really cool things to play with and it always makes it more fun to go somewhere Claire can run around and touch everything. Rachel of course had a good time as always in the snugglie.)

We ate dinner in Clarksville on the way home and got home around 8:15, just enough time for me to finish preparing my talk for Sunday's meeting.

Hope you all had a good week! We love you!

A Day on the Farm

Alli, Jonathan, Jonah & Claire on the "hayride".