Last weekend, Park Circle had a community block party in celebration of St. Patrick's Day. We'd originally planned to meet one of our local friends there, but when her two year old spontaneously decided it was nap time and she couldn't find her car keys, we decided it was best to reschedule. (Life happens and if a two year old needs a nap, it's better for everyone if they nap. I do remember that from my nannying days. haha)

Michael and I decided that we would head to the party anyways and ended up having a really nice time. We laughed while we were there because Park Circle, the area hosting the party, is a place where we come quite often to go on walks or to take blog photos. Normally the walk up and down the main street feels quite short, but on Saturday it was PACKED with people and suddenly the street felt so long. There was a lot of trying to merge with the crowd and rerouting as people came to a dead stop in front of you. 

I will always love the colors and architecture of the buildings in Downtown Charleston.

When I was growing up, I was obsessed with the Mandie books by Lois Gladys Leppard. Mandie traveled to Charleston on several occasions throughout the books, and it made the city sound enchanting. When she was old enough, my sister read the same books, so it was fun to finally be able to show her the city we both read so much about as children. Until this trip, we would just laugh when we texted or saw each other in California about how funny and strange the world is, that I live in Charleston now. A place that previously had been so far away and mysterious to us when we were children.

I love trees. And fall. The two together are pretty much the best things ever. In California we don't experience the changing of the leaves in the same way that the East coast does, so when I moved to Tennessee for college, I fell in love with the changing colors. In Charleston, we still have trees but fall isn't quite the same as it was in Tennessee. I was super excited to get to see the beginning of the trees changing while we were in Georgia at the beginning of October!

One afternoon Michael and I drove out to Lake Zwerner to hike around a trail that we'd heard from Michael's parents was super beautiful. We didn't end up making it all the way around the lake because we were too busy taking photos of EVERYTHING and challenging each other to capture difficult shots just for fun. (Plus, Dad had offered to take us out for pizza - my favorite - so we had a time limit on our outing.) I definitely want to go back and walk the full trail when we return to Georgia for Thanksgiving.

The night sky is one of my very favorite things. Maybe it's because I grew up in a suburban area of California where it was difficult to see very many stars, but every time I've gotten away from the city lights and had a chance to look up at the night sky and see stars, I am just filled with awe. Creation is such a beautiful thing! I don't even have words to describe how it makes me feel.

When Michael and I went to his grandparents' lake house during Hurricane Matthew, we decided to take full advantage of the fact that for once there weren't a ton of little cousins running around and we could feel safe taking the camera out on to the dock. We waited until around midnight, grabbed some bean bag chairs from the "grandkids' media room" (where the grandkids are allowed to retreat and watch movies or play loud video games together during family gatherings), our camera remote and tripod, and headed out to the dock.

Approaching October, Michael + I knew this was going to be one of the busiest months of the year for the two of us. We had events planned every weekend and despite my best efforts to decline a lot of mid-week gatherings (because I just knew last minute things would pop up), our weeks were getting full, too. It was one of those months where you're excited about everything happening individually but if you pause to think about all of it as a collective whole, you get overwhelmed. (Or am I the only person who experiences that feeling?)