Hello, November.

Welcome November! I think I'm still a bit in shock that there are only two months left in this year, but I love November and December so I'm happy to have November arrive! Although, the start to this month here in SC is far too mild for me. Weather man, bring me the cold temps please. There's not much more that I love than running my fireplace on a cold fall day. 

Josh and I didn't dress up for Halloween this year, but we did have a free weekend so we scooted up to the foothills and went hiking at Table Rock. We took Murphy and had a great time. I loved all the foliage and to me, there is something so magical about fall and all of the leaves changing colors. Murphy was an angel on this trip and I was so proud of him and his listening. We hiked a 2 mile loop around the lake at Table Rock, stopped for our peanut butter sandwich lunch at a picnic table right on the water and watched Murphy be memorized by the ducks that were quaking SO loud at him. He gave them a little bark and just stared at them. After our hike at Table Rock, we wanted to stop in  downtown Greenville on our way back to go to a puppy store mom and I had been in on our trip back in September. We found a parking spot and headed to the  store to pick up a few treats for Murphy. We weren't going to take him in the store, Josh was going to stand outside with him, but the owner insisted he come in. So, Josh nervously walked Murphy into the store, the store is pretty small with a lot of displays, so I was just waiting for something to go flying. And as I've mentioned before, Murphy is a rescue and is pretty afraid of anyone he doesn't know, and goes into a bit of attack mode if he feels the least bit uncomfortable. We've been working really hard on this by trying to get him out in social settings more. Wouldn't you know he walked right up to the lady at the counter, took a treat from her AND let her pet him! I was in shock and awe, and was certainly having a proud dog owner moment. That little guy really has come so far since we adopted him, and I'm so proud of him. 

We decided since we were already in Greenville that we wanted to take Murph to Falls Park and let him run around a bit. Josh and I love downtown Greenville and don't get to make our way up there near as often as we'd like. It holds a special place in our heart, as it was one of our stops our engagement weekend (which is almost 3 years ago now, crazy!) It was so much fun taking Murphy to Falls Park and he did such a good job handling the large crowds and a ton of other dogs walking around. He stopped at all of the crosswalks and didn't seem a bit bothered by all the people walking around, which he would normally cower at. Also, he got a lot of looks, smiles, and points because he had on his Halloween bandanna :) We really had a great day trip to the mountains, and I'm glad we were able to squeeze it in this weekend.

Looking forward to this month, I'm thinking it's going to be a busy one.
Here's a few things we have going on: 

-Thanksgiving

-Vista Lights in downtown Columbia 

-Black Friday shopping 

-Day trip to Greenville with my mom and Granny for, you guessed it, shopping :) 

-Fall Retreat with our Youth group to Asbury Hills

-Put up our Christmas tree and decorations

I'm really on top of my game and our Christmas cards are sitting on the desk in our office, waiting for me to address and mail them. I went with Vistaprint this year and am really impressed with the quality of our cards, not to mention we got an awesome deal of them. I'd like to send those out at the very beginning of December. I'm also determined to buy an address book and as I'm addressing our cards, write the address in the book so that I've got them all in one place...rather than me spending too much time chasing down everyone's addresses that are in about 6 different notebooks in our office. We've also got to sit down and really work on a Christmas gift list for everyone so that we can get most of our gifts purchased this month. I really wanted to get a few gifts purchased in October, but that just didn't happen. I need to start thinking about what I want to ask for this year too, because I'm really not sure!

Another event I'd really like to accomplish this month is a friendsgiving dinner. I'm honestly not sure when we can/will fit it in, but I'm going to look over our calendar very closely and see if there's a night we can make it happen. 

Josh and I have been talking for a while now about putting a subway tile backsplash in our kitchen this winter. We're thinking sometime in January probably. This month I'd like to go look at some tile options and price it out in preparation for this project. It's one I'm really excited about and know it will enhance the look of our kitchen tremendously. 

A lot of great things coming down the pipe this month and I'm excited for all of them!