The Beasley Family: Fall, a Birthday, and Some Snow

Earlier this month we seemed to have skipped Fall and headed straight into Winter. The week of Matt's birthday brought temperatures in the 30s and 40s and even a little bit of snow. I had convinced myself that I would not be leaving the apartment for the remainder of our time here because if it was this cold in October, how bad would it be in December and January? So I had resigned myself to hibernation. It sounded like a good plan. Except that I would have missed out on some fun stuff like the Pumpkin Patch and Matt's big 30th birthday bash. So I decided not to hibernate and the weather decided to be more like Fall. It was a good compromise. Because we have church on Sunday evenings with Bridge Community, we headed out on a Sunday morning to see about a Pumpkin Patch. We had been planning the trip for weeks, trying to organize vehicles to carry everyone out there. As we were navigating the last few minutes of our trip, our Czech friend riding with us said, "Why are we going to a Pumpkin Patch? We don't have pumpkins in Czech." Great. Needless to say, our expectations were pretty low as we pulled up. It turned out great, however, as our Czech hosts had imported some giant pumpkins and even a couple of ponies for the kids to ride.

Bryce posing with the pumpkins.

Finally a family photo.

Wiping drool. He is his father's son.

Bryce meets his first horse. He didn't cry. In fact, I'm sure he's already looking off in the distance for some cows to round up. Papaw will be so proud.

On Matt's actual birthday, we were greeted with snow, rain, and more snow. It was fun (and funny). Matt didn't think so. So he shot a video.

A few days later, we celebrated Matt's 30th birthday with cake and friends and the weather was back to normal. Here's a few photos of the birthday celebration and a video of everyone singing "Happy Birthday."