Fall has officially arrived minus the weather

Ever since my freshman year of college I seem to have fallen in love with everything about fall. Leaves falling, cooler weather, college football, pumpkins, the usual-so of course a fall would never be complete without a trip to the pumpkin farm. This morning Nic, Isaiah, and myself piled in the car to take a trip down to Linvilla Orchards(see attached pictures). We got to feed corn to chickens, see a deer up close, pick out a pumpkin, and my favorite, pick our own apples off the tree. Who knew you could grow such a variety of apples in one place? Now that we've got our pumpkin on the front porch there's only one thing left to make fall official- come on cooler weather.




Pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins.

















The giant pumpkin still has a few inches on him.














I said "Big Cheesy Smile", I guess Isaiah wasn't feeling that one.

Shake it like an Earthquake

Last night I played in the most exciting basketball game that I've ever been a part of. Seth, a friend of mine from church, works for the Southwest Philly Community Development Center, and has gotten to know a man by the name of Earthquake through his work. Earthquake is a former boxer, a garbage collector in SW Philly, and a community activist who works toward non-violence. He started a basketball league that plays in a gym at a Baptist church on 70th and Woodland, and invited Seth to get a team together from our church to join in the league. The three other teams were made up of athletic teenagers from the neighborhood. Then there was our group of out-of-shape 20-and-30-something white guys.

Picture this scene: a loud, cramped gym that is about 2/3 the size of a normal basketball court where the walls are about 18 inches away from the out-of-bounds lines on all sides. Earthquake gathers everybody for prayer at center court before the games start and asks God to bless all of the "ballers" and their families. Basketball players and fans line the court and erupt onto it with shouts and yells every time a big play happens for either team. A lone ref with his whistle does the best he can to control the chaos and call an honest game despite lots of fouling and protests on every call.

Somehow, the old white guys keep up and send the game into overtime and double overtime. Thirteen seconds left - they're down by two. Jay Hiatt gets the ball in the post, is double teamed, goes up, hits the shot, and the whistle blows. And one. The crowd goes wild. The clock shows four seconds left. Something happens, and all the sudden the scorekeeper is coming after one of the players on the other team. He gets held back, but the scoreboard is unplugged. Five minutes later the scores and time have been replaced. Jay goes to the line, having had five minutes to think about this shot. He puts it up, off the backboard, and it rolls in! The VCC Ballers Shotcallers pull out the improbable 2OT win!

Earthquake was loving every minute of it, and I'm sure the smile on his face was partly because of the exciting game and partly because his goal of getting kids off the street and involved in healthy competition that ended with everybody shaking hands and congratulating each other was playing out before him. I had to rush home to meet people at my apartment to watch Monday night football, but I think I would have been speeding down 30 blocks of Woodland Ave. with my windows down and music blaring even if that wasn't the case because I was that pumped up.

A Night with Philadelphia's Finest

So this will be a short post, I promise. Tonight I was pulled over for the first time ever for violating a traffic sign. I really didn't see the sign and I was straight up lost in the middle of North Philadelphia. I must admit the officer was very friendly and after seeing I was truly lost and unaware of what I'd done, he helped me out with where I was going and didn't give me a ticket. I was truly grateful, a little shaken up, but you better believe I obeyed all traffic laws on the way home.

Long Time No Post

Since it's been a month since our last post I thought I should give a quick update about what we've been up to. Honestly we've been quite the traveling fools, we spent an awesome, relaxing weekend with Nic's family at Indian Lake back in August. Cool weather, boating, Mabel in a life jacket, awesome produce, and time with family made an incredible experience. Then Labor Day weekend we traveled down to Historic Williamsburg, VA for Micah & Jess's wedding; it was such a fun weekend and not to mention we were in the great state of Virginia so what could be better. Nic and I danced our hearts out, probably more than we ever have before but it was so worth it! And now we're back to the present day; I have a new job at Dignity Housing, a transitional housing organization for women and their families, which I'm so excited about. Nic is doing well, quite busy at work and very excited that NFL is back on! Go Bengals! We had a college luncheon this past Sunday after church and had a great turnout; Nic & I were both super encouraged and excited what God is going to do with that. So that's all for now, I promise to update way sooner than another month. Come on fall!








Nic and me at the rehearsal dinner.
















Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds

Vick

I recently read this article from ESPN.com about Michael Vick and found it to be a good look at the situation that surrounds him from a couple of different angles. The following quote from the article got me thinking:

People's opinions about every new situation are formed by the totality of their experiences. Animal rights activists think it's about cruelty. Soured Falcons fans think it's about tragedy in multiple ways. African-Americans in Atlanta, according to prominent black leaders, think it's about Vick not getting due process because of the color of his skin.

Having heard all the news surrounding the allegations, I have come to the conclusion that Vick is most likely guilty. I stopped to consider what the connections I have with the situation are and how they are affecting my opinion. Here are the different factors that I can recognize:

• As a fellow graduate of Virginia Tech with Michael Vick, I long to see him bring a good name to the university that I love. He is, after all, the most well known attendee of the university (I'd say that his closest competitors would be Frank Beamer, Bimbo Coles, Bruce Smith, and Homer Hickum, so he wins this one by a long shot). When Michael's brother Marcus got in repeated serious trouble with the law that led to his dismissal from Virginia Tech, I was always glad that even though Michael seemed to have a shady air about him (especially when he was around Marcus), he had kept a fairly good public image.
  
• As an NFL fan (and specifically a Bengals fan), I have watched a lot of players get arrested and suspended for things ranging from DUI and drug possession to weapons charges and assault. I can't say that it would shock me to find out that another NFL player was engaged in illegal activity.
  
• As a dog owner, I am sickened by the practice of forcing dogs to engage in this sort of thing and either killing or abandoning the ones who don't perform. We adopted Mabel from one of many shelters in southern New Jersey that is filled with stray/abandoned dogs that people say were results of dog fighting, or at least intentional breeding and training of aggressive dogs. I think it's easy to allow yourself to have a very emotional response to this issue and be quick to assume guilt.
  

So I guess that Michael Vick's guilt or innocence will be determined by a hopefully unbiased court, regardless of what the public opinion of him is. I would still love to see this all end up to be false accusations, but my gut feeling is that Mike will end up in jail for at least a little while and see his NFL career ruined.

Dream Camp Exclusive

For the past 3 weeks I've been working in the city at Girard College where one company brings together 300 kids from all over the greater Philadelphia area to have fun at a summer camp. The first week started out sort of rough with me contracting a kiddy disease, known by the name of strep throat to many, something may I add I've not had since I was 10 but luckily I recovered and have had a blast since then; I teach Project Discovery(science) and World Tours(s. studies) to a bunch of 6-9 year olds who have blown me out of the water with their intelligence. "Most" of my campers encourage me daily with their insights and funny comments and it has certainly been a rewarding experience. Especially when moments like this morning happen where a young, often difficult camper runs up and says "Miss April, my uncle left yesterday for Belize, I told him about all that stuff we learned, even them funny people with cone shaped heads and cross-eyes".
I don't know much about their home lives or how well they do in school but it has been amazing to see the smiles on these kid's faces as a room full of people cheer them on for earning the honor of "Camp Scout" for the day. Just giving these kids a place to have fun and be kids has turned out to not only be a blessing for them but me as well. This afternoon as one of my campers was attempting to teach me the Dream Camp rap she stopped one of her friends en route to the bus and was beaming to tell them she had successfully taught me the rap/dance, " I didn't think I could ever teach anybody anything."It turns out what I thought was the most whitest white girl dance ever could bring a huge smile to one child's face and I'd risk humiliation for that any day.

The Order of the Phoenix

Tuesday night, April and I went to the opening midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Both of us had to be at work early the next morning, so we tried to get a couple of hours of sleep before we went to the movie, and we both passed out for a couple of hours after we got home at 3:30 am. That one late night made us both feel tired the rest of the week - we must be getting old. I must say though that it was worth it to act like young people, ignore the voice of responsibility inside our heads that seems so loud these days, and go see a good movie with good friends.

Although we do enjoy Harry Potter, we apparently aren't as passionate as the people at the screening who were sporting their Death Eater costumes or the guy in front of us who refused to move down a seat to accommodate other movie goers (in a sold out theater) because he was "perfectly centered." We started reading the Harry Potter books earlier this year on recommendations from a lot of friends, especially our friends who are English teachers and professors of literature. We were hooked. I'm the kind of reader who can't put down a good book, and April had a job that presented her with a lot of down time that she could spend reading, so we got through all six books just in the right timing for the release of the final one next Friday.

This was my favorite of the five Harry Potter movies so far. Maybe it was because I had time to get excited about it and it was the first one I saw in a theater, but I felt like the movie presented the story in an intriguing and easy to follow way even though there was no way they could keep all the detail from this huge book. I'm still more excited to read the final book, but the movie was entertaining and a good way to build the anticipation.