Fall Weekend

We had a really fun weekend! We had over 150 kids stop by the studio on Friday night for free Halloween photos. There were so many people out trick-or-treating, thanks to the beautiful weather. And there were so many adorable kids and costumes! It was a little crazy at times but we had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully, it will draw people back to shop downtown Lafayette and to think of Ailor Photography when they want to have family portraits.

On Saturday, I finished my online adoption course through The Hague. Mark -- the star student of the family -- finished about two weeks ago. On Saturday afternoon, we drove over to Kokomo to meet our friends, Chris and Sarah, who are also adopting from Ethiopia. Chris and I worked together at Manchester and I got to know Sarah when she was a student at Manchester. When Mark and I announced our adoption plans, I got a flood of e-mails from our MC friends telling us about Chris and Sarah's adoption. I was so excited to make this connection! Mark and I were so thrilled to talk with them and to hear about their adoption journey and most importantly, all about their adorable little boy. (Believe me -- he's VERY cute!) They are hoping/planning to travel yet this year and we are very excited for them. Plans are in the works for a gathering here at our house later this month with many of the other families from the area who are adopting from Ethiopia. We are hoping that Sarah and Chris will be able to join us too.

From Kokomo, we drove up to Peru to celebrate Scott and Lorie's birthdays. Scott is Mark's older brother and Lorie is Scott's wife. We had a firepit going in the backyard to roast hot dogs and make smores. We also ate chili and Mark's favorite, hot dog sauce. Everything was delicious! Our great nieces, Braylee and Lily, wore their Halloween costumes -- a lady bug and a bumble bee. They were just too cute for words! I'd show you photos but I accidentally left the camera in the backyard at the Ailor's house. On the ground. Outside. Overnight. How irresponsible am I?!?! (On Saturday night, I had a crazy dream that the Ailor's backyard flooded that night and that my camera was at the bottom of the flooded yard. In my dream, the search and rescue team was there but I was too afraid to ask them to look for a camera. Anyone care to analyze my dream??) Anyway, Saturday was a beautiful evening to sit outside around the fire. Good food and good company. : )

On Sunday, we enjoyed brunch with our friends the Sharp's at IHOP. We hadn't seen them for a few weeks so it was fun to catch up with them. We enjoyed things like the creative face pancake (Sean, their 3 year old), nutella crepes (Chris) and more traditional things like omelettes and B&G's (Mark and Brian). Being the chocolate lover that I am, I upgraded my eggs and hashbrowns to include the chocolate chips pancakes. Can you say, yummy?? I knew that later in the day I would be raking leaves, thus the splurge.

Speaking of leaves, we spent about 2.5 hours raking on Sunday. And that was just round 1! We're fairly certain that we'll be raking at least one more time. Here's a photo of the large mound o' leaves by the road ... and believe me, the photo does not do it justice!

So that was our weekend in a nutshell! We've got a busy week ahead of us ... dinner with the faculty fellow floor tomorrow night, CFS Ambassadors meeting on Wednesday, photographing ladies night at Macy's on Thursday, cleaning and preparing for our home study visit to our house next week and dinner at our house with 'friends-who-formerly-lived-in-North-Manchester-but now-work-at-Purdue-and-live-in-Lafayette' (yes, there is such a group!) Deanna, Brian, Julie, Laurie and Josh. Can't wait! Yes, life is good.