Oh how I love the Fall!

The end of October. The end of my favorite month, especially this year. We have had a great month with South Carolina visitors and I had some quality time in Kansas City and St. Louis with the kids and gkids.

Today is dear Eva Marie's 1st birthday. We are sorry that we are not in St. Louis celebrating, but here is a really cute picture of her we can all enjoy :-)

So who travels to South Carolina in the fall and why? Well the why is easy, this area has some great fall foilage and of course we live here!

Early in the month, Edna and Cliff Hawkes from McPherson came for a NCCAA golf tournament. We had a great time with them as well as Hal and Kathy Hoxie (new president at Central).

Be warned that if you do visit us, we expect you to do some walking with us. So far, everyone has survived. One of our favorite spots is Dupont State Forest just over the line in North Carolina. There are some great waterfalls and they are quite gorgeous this fall with all of the rain. This falls is Bridal Veil Falls and last time Jer and I were here we walked on this rock up to the "little" water fall. We even went underneath it. FYI all of the falls in this blog are in movie "Last of the Mohicans" if you are interested.









Here are Jerry, Edna and Cliff resting at the end of the hike. They did some extra walking because it was my first time to be the tour guy (usually we depend on Jer) and I made a wrong choice and we ended up going more up hill than planned. The Hawkes are quite good sports.









Mike and Marty Saxton most recently from Sheridan, WY but wonderful friends and mentors for Jer and I when they were at Central earlier in Jer's education career and our early marriage. We so enjoyed talking and talking with Mike and Marty. The Lord blessed us with their encouragement, support and love.













Our most recent visitors were Mike and Cindy Tillman from McPherson. What a grand time we had. Tried some new places to eat here in downtown Greenville and enjoyed some great fall weather. Mike and Cindy tried out the apartment we can rent for guests here at the complex. They reported that it was wonderful! It was so good to catch up on McPherson stories and also events in the Tillman's lives. They are going to be 1st time grandparents from a distance, so of course we have much wisdom to share :-)









Between guests I was fortunate to fly to St. Louis and them go with the families to the Kansas City Marathon. Brett, our 3rd medical school son, ran in the marathon. It was great fun and he did well. In spite of a couple of discouraging events (cars and home repairs) we did have a wonderful time together. Those grandkids are something else, I am always amazed at how special they are everytime I see them. The 3 brothers with the 2 year olds are in this photo. The laughing kids are Will (Rodney and Gina) and Yuri (Erin and Michael) with Yuri's 3 mo. old brother, Kye.







This last photo is a hike Jer and I took in between things up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We went up Mt. Pisgah, the highest point on the Parkway, and looked at the clouds. The mountain was cloud covered, but it was a good hike and we met some great folks. You know Jer never meets a stranger :-)