Fall Festivities

Its been another busy week! I have TONS to do/due at work, so I've been consumed with report cards, parent/teacher conferences, quarterly assessments, etc. That doesn't leave much time for writing here, but now that its finally the weekend, I had a little free time.

Last weekend, Tom and I went to this huge corn maze called the Amazing Maize Maze here in Huntersville. (http://www.ruralhill.net/maze.htm) There are only 8 mazes like it in the world. On Friday nights, they hold a flashlight maze, where you go through the maze in the dark with flashlights. We went thinking that it would maybe take half an hour or so at most. It took TWO AND A HALF hours! This was an intense maze, let me tell you. We felt like we were on the Amazing Race. They send you in with this giant flag to wave if you need assistance and a blank map of the place. There are 12 mailboxes located throughout the maze that each have a piece of the map in them. So when you get to a mailbox, you get another piece of the puzzle. But, since you don't have a map, you spend forever just wandering around. PLUS, the 12 mailboxes are not all on the same path. The maze has three "levels," meaning that its not like you could draw just one path through the whole maze and pass every mailbox on the way. To pass every mailbox, you would have to follow/navigate three different paths. It was really difficult, and there were a few times I really wanted to leave Tom in there, but he had the S.O.S. flag, so I figured that probably wouldn't be such a good idea.


Then, on Sunday, we went to a local pumpkin patch/farm that is owned by the family of the woman who teaches next to me. It was a really nice farm-- it has a petting zoo, food, pumpkins, a mini corn maze and their home, which is over 100 years old. Since we knew the owners, we got to go into the house, which is a century old farmhouse and one of the only "shotgun" houses left in NC. We learned that a shotgun house is a house where you could stand at the front door, fire a shotgun, and the bullet would go out the back door. It was a beautiful house and the land was awesome. We got two pumpkins-- one for me to carve with my kids at school, and one to carve at home. Later, we went over to Drew's to grill and watch football.

On Tuesday, Tom's mom's sisters came to visit for the night. Our first official houseguests!! We went out to eat with them and had a really nice time. Tom had a second interview for a position here in Charlotte (business field, not teaching) and it went really well. He has been invited back for the third interview and he is really interested in it. He would need to be trained for about 4 months or so, and take some classes to get the certifications he needs, but he's okay with that bcause he could continue to sub while doing that. Keep your fingers crossed!