What October Looked Like

October was a big month for Miss Whit!

She got to perform at a Gala!

I'd never been to a gala.

In fact, I wasn't even sure how to pronounce it.

Is it Gay-luh or Gal-luh?

Everyone there called it Gal-luh.

Who knew? 

It was at Revolution Mill,

a fun remodeled old textile mill.

It was so exciting!

They had yummy food,

including these super cute dessert shots.

They had to perform with masks on,

And she was singing in French.

And there was lots of ambient noise, since

it's a social event.

But she still sounded great. :)

This is "Si Me Vers".

Not sure if that's the right spelling...

This is Clarice, her voice teacher.

They make a great team.

Super grateful for all Whit has learned from her.

It was fun pretending to be fancy for a night.

General Conference weekend!

Hooray!

Oh, how I love sitting around the TV with  my family

and being spiritually fed by our church leaders.

It was a fabulous conference, as always.

No big changes announced.

My twice-a-year cinnamon roll tradition.

So. good.

And so much work.

Puzzle time!

For one of our YW activities, the girls decided they wanted

to put kind messages inside balloons and hand them out to strangers.

Or friends.

We had such a fun time putting them together.

We drove most of the girls to the church building,

so our van was STUFFED full of balloons on the way home.

It was hilarious.

And we gave two out to strangers on the drive home,

which was fun.

I'm finally getting around to staining my

bathroom cabinets!

Exciting!

Here is the "before."

And the "in-progress".

I like staining them, but it's a slow process,

because you have to let it dry for few days

in between coats.

STATES!!!

I played on a singles team this summer and we won

our local league, so we got to go to the state tournament in Goldsboro.

A few of my tennis friends:

Me, Catherine, Heather, Tracy, Leigh, and Jennifer.

We stayed at an "interesting" hotel.

It was new and the rooms were nice, but they were more

like apartments, so you had to check in before 6 and

there was no breakfast served.

I didn't do well with my tennis game. I got to play in 

three matches and I lost all three. :(

But I had fun and played OK.

I'm more comfortable in doubles than singles.

More fun the next night at a yummy Mexican restaurant

where I got to speak Spanish with the waiter and he 

became my new friend.

Andrew took the girls out to Toshi's cafe for some sushi

while I was gone. It's become a new favorite for them.

More work on the cabinets.

For our combined activity this month,

we took pictures of headstones to put online for

Billion Graves.

We did most of these green dots.

And all of these ones.

Grandma and Grandpa Sweat went to Cali and they

stopped to see our boy in St. George on the way.

I LOVE getting pics like this! Makes me happy.

Another beautiful sunrise.

I have some new plants out on our deck.

These red Gerbera daisies make me happy.

Here's our broccoli plant that we grew in our pathetic 

little container garden. Boo. I'm so sad it didn't do better.

Broadway shows are back! Yippee!

We have a new performing arts center in Greensboro

that was supposed to open right when COVID started.

Doh!

We've been anxiously awaiting our chance to go there

and it finally came! I got the four of us tickets

to watch WICKED together when it came to town this month.

We were pretty impressed with the Tanger Center.

Can you spot Andrew?

Apparently only short people go to the theatre....

Fun decor in the lobby.

Ready for the show!

It was FANTASTIC.

Oh, I love that show. 

Whit and I had seen it before,

but this was the first time for Andrew and Care Bear.

All of us thoroughly enjoyed it.

Andrew was familiar with a lot of the songs, but 

didn't know the storyline at all and liked seeing

how it all played out.

Such a good show!!!

In other big tennis news this month,

our 6.5 combo team won our local bracket

and had a Saturday playoff against the night-time team

to see who would go to States.

I got to play with Sara.

She's awesome and I love her, but we'd never actually

played together, which was a little unnerving.

Andrew came to watch part of the match

and he took a couple video clips.

Sara and I are on the far court.

I'm in the black shirt and leggings with a red skirt.

We lost the first set 5-7.

Oops.

Then we figured ourselves out and won the second set 6-2

and also won the third set tiebreak.

Hooray!

Both other courts won as well.

Yippee! We're going back to Wilmington! 

This is our fourth times going to States together and 

these ladies are SO MUCH FUN.

Serena, Stephanie, Brenda, Me, Teresa, Sara, Elisabeth, and April

Andrew and I went on a geocaching date.

It involved Andrew having to climb a tree.

That doesn't happen often.

Score! We found it!

The Raleigh Temple has reopened!

Hooray!

I snuck up there on a weekday morning

after dropping Caroline off at school.

LOVE that place and the Spirit that I feel there.

Pretty roadside wildflowers on the drive to Raleigh.

Well, it only took FOUR MONTHS when we 

were expecting ONE, but the bathroom remodel is done!

Hooray!

Here are some before and after shots.

I stained the cabinets and replaced the hardware.

The workers replaced the light fixtures, faucets,

flooring, and painted.

I'm so happy with how it turned out!

They also tore out the old shower and replaced it.

I LOVE our new shower.

The tiles on the floor are so pretty.

And it's a little bigger, which is nice.

They took out our old garden tub and replaced it with this

pretty "vessel" tub. I'm not much of a bather, but I 

think it's pretty.

I replaced the window film.

We also got a new toilet, which Andrew loves 

because it's a little taller than our old one.

This is the biggest remodel project we've had done on the house.

It was expensive and time consuming and a pain in the rear end,

but I'm still happy that we did it. 

Beyonka, who is hard of hearing, taught the YW 

a sign language class for one of our activities.

She did a great job and the girls LOVED it.

The YW planned a virtual Halloween party

for one of our Oct activities.

It involved me buying 13 pumpkins.

That cart was HEAVY.

B-train has had to be our long-distance

IT guy to help us get our Oculus working.

I feel like an old lady because I don't know what I'm doing.

PGSA fall concert.

The high school chorus is small but mighty.

I was SO excited for the fall leaves this year.

I decided that I wanted to take two different trips to see them.

Since my family isn't always up for my adventures, 
I left it up to them to see who wanted to join me, if anyone.

Andrew said he'd come along on both.

The girls only wanted to do one.

So Andrew and I got a little day trip to ourselves.

We took a quick drive to Tennessee.

I had heard that there are great

views on Roan Mountain.

It's just over the TN border,

about a three hour drive.

We hiked on the Carver's Gap Trail.

It was a two-mile out and back hike.

It was perfect for us. Probably about as 

much as Andrew's heels could handle.

After a little hike through the woods, you come out on these balds

at the top of the mountains.

Such gorgeous views!

I LOVED it.

I'm glad Andrew could come with me.

Breathtaking.

This was one of the "peak" weekends for leaf-peeping,

so I knew it would probably be crowded.

It was hard to find a parking space here.

And our next stop was the Blue Ridge Parkway,

which I knew might be even more crowded.

Luckily, there were a couple of spots where we could

pull over and take in the views.

Look at that autumn deliciousness!!!

And look at all those cars also trying to take it in. :)

We mostly just enjoyed the views from the road.

And told ourselves that it was fine to be behind slow cars.

The only other place we got out of the car was at the

Moses H. Cone Memorial Park.

I'd never stopped here.

It's a gorgeous mansion, but is being remodeled right now.

I think there was part you could still go in,

but we didn't have masks with us and just stayed outside.

I wanted to stop and eat at Blowing Rock on our way home.

But the restaurant where I wanted to eat had an hour wait.

Boo.

All the other tourists want to eat good food, too.

So we kept driving and stopped in Lenoir at a cute little

restaurant with outdoor seating and Mason jar glasses

called the Side Street Pour House and Grill.

PGSA's Art Booster club is trying to get more parents

involved, so they hosted a little open house and invited

students to perform. Exactly ONE student from the

PERFORMING ARTS school signed up:

my girl.

I thought it was crazy that more kids didn't join her.

But I guess they didn't give them a lot of notice.

Whit can perform anytime and anywhere! :)

She sang two songs:

Si Mes Vers (the same French song she sang at the GAL-luh)

and The Girl in 14-G, a super fun broadway-type song

that Kristin Chenoweth performs.

Here's a little snippet.

She killed it.

Even with a mask on.

Our virtual Halloween party.

Whit was a Victorian lady, C was Faith Connors from 

Mirror's Edge and I put on some Dia de Los Muertos 

stickers from Goodwill. :)

Gorgeous sunset

I thought this Halloween art was fun.

Trunk or Treat!

Our first ward activity in a year and a half!

The YW were in charge.

Toni and Becca

Some of the games

Trunk or Treaters

I thought the missionaries had a cute set-up.

Care Bear and Piper

Sister Dudley and Sister Fields

Whitney was so excited to have her OWN trunk

to set up! She loved handing out candy to all the kiddos.

Before the Trunk or Treat was announced, I had already

scheduled an appointment at the temple.

It had been too long and they are too hard to get,

so we didn't cancel.

Andrew picked me up from the Trunk or Treat and we

headed to Raleigh.

It was fantastic to be together in the temple again.

I love Andrew and I love the temple and I love

worshipping together.