December, October and June are my most favorite months of the year. Google it and you'll see that a majority of Americans agree with me. My to-do lists during these months are usually extensive, and last month was no exception. I am trying to soak up every ounce of fall that I can, partly because we have no idea where we'll be living a year from now, and also because there is never nothing to do in October.

The Benjamin House

True story: I won a public speaking contest in college when I told a story about one of my visits to the Benjamin House. Afterward someone came up to me and asked how I came up with such a scary story? "I didn't..." I said slowly... and walked away. 

Just kidding. But not about this house or about my scary story because those things are real. This place has and will forever be the definition of creepy, and conveniently ... it was only about ten minutes away from our high school. The legend I was told as a teenager was that a mother (or father?) went crazy and killed their family in one of the upstairs bedrooms. You'll read something different if you search the story online, but what I can say is true: I've been in this house several times (I even ran into a real witch here!) and after some of the things we saw and heard, I am convinced that if ghosts need a place to hang out, this is where they would do it. Nowadays I'm way too chicken to go back inside the Benjamin House, but we did drive by it one night last month and it gave me the goosebumps to see it at dusk.

Witches Night Out

I can't say I miss much about singlehood, but I do miss spending so much time with my girlfriends annnnd maybe listening to music really loud in the car. Both of these combine wonderfully at Witches Night Out, and any tradition five years running must be saying something.

A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Max and I will swing by the bookstore and read a few children's Halloween books before visiting the same pumpkin patch we've been going to for years. This year we somehow walked out of our pumpkin patch with a 15 lb. pumpkin the size of a small television. I think Charlie Brown would have been proud.

Not related, but I really love this video

My sister literally never listened to my parents growing up and I had a speech impediment until I was seven.

Happy Halloween!

muddy buddy fall break - year 3

This year with our friends made me feel a little bit old because I could barely stomach watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the music we listened to I'm pretty sure no one in high school today has ever heard of, and my bad hip was acting up in the cold. On the other hand, its weekends like these that make me think I'll somehow forever be 21. When we're all together again my body goes back into college-mode, and I can stay up eating pizza and talking until five in the morning and still not hate my life the next day.

On our drive home from Park City I told Max that if I could keep all of the people I loved most in the world all together, and if we could all live on the same block and be friends and neighbors for the rest of our lives, it would be with these people.

"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends. - Walt Whitman

Year 1
Year 2

clue

After years of murder mystery parties, I have learned two things: You can never trust someone wearing striped socks, and you can never, ever trust Ben Lewis.

PS. Max looks so cute with a mustache.