Pierced Ears, Wallaby, Granddad's Apples and Back to Church

So much has happened and I have failed to document it all. Here's an attempt to catch up. Back in March, Baylie was given pierced ears for her birthday. Unfortunately, it was at the beginning of COVID so she wasn't able to have it done. Finally, in September, she got them done! She was sooo excited! We went to Sharky's in Lexington.

She's one happy girl!

In September, our van finally bit the dust. We decided if we were going to be spending money every month to fix it, we might as well have a car payment. So we embarked on a vehicle hunt. I had been doing some interest shopping online for a while and was leaning towards a Honda CRV. I only had three requirements: a roof rack for our kayak, electronic lift gate and leather seats - because, kids. I couldn't find those things in a car that wasn't way outside of our price range. It was discouraging.

I decided to forget about a Honda and see what else was out there. I love CarMax because it's an easy place to research. I started leaning towards a Subaru and everything I learned about them was positive - affordable, reliable, good gas mileage, long life, etc. I settled on a Subaru Outback and requested to have it shipped from Charlotte, NC, to Columbia. CarMax called to confirm everything.

A couple days later on a Friday, I called to see if the car was on it's way or if we could just drive and see it. I found out that CarMax had messed up and the request had not been processed. Plus, it was in Raleigh not Charlotte. I was so disappointed. But I was able to find another Outback that was in Charlotte and had the features we wanted. Well, we got to Charlotte and the car didn't have the feature we thought it would have and it reeked of cigarette smoke. I was so sad. It was all I could do not to cry. We were running out of time and we desperately needed a car. I was ready to give up, but instead I jumped on my phone and found a Subaru Forrester at another CarMax. The guy we were working with at CarMax gave us the text of a guy at the other CarMax. On the way there, we passed a Forrester and realized that it wasn't going to be big enough for our family. I got on my phone again and found another another Outback. I texted the guy at CarMax and asked him to hold it for us.

When we got there - the car was perfect! As we were walking to the car, another salesman was coming to get the car, but because we had texted our contact, he had already pulled the keys! Someone else tried to pull it just a short time later, but we got there first. The car had just been traded in the day before. So they had cleaned it and tested it and it had just been put into the system a few hours later. We really feel it was a blessing from Heavenly Father just for us. On top of everything else, David had been let out of work early or we would have missed the car completely.

The car was so much more than we had hoped for. Not only does it have the three features we wanted, it has so many bells and whistles we didn't even imagine. It keeps us in the right lane, it keeps us from following too closely, it has memory to remember mine and David's personal settings, it has GPS (that we still haven't figured out how to program), seat warmers in front and back, and other little bells and whistles. Such an amazing vehicle! We were so excited and truly felt blessed.

We named the car Wallaby because he's an Outback. On Sunday, we took him for a spin to the temple. Did I mention he has a moon roof?!

In September, the kids and I decided to go apple picking. We haven't done that since the kids were really little. We decided to go to Grandad's in North Carolina. It was a loooong drive, but we didn't mind because we have a new car!

We were able to pick gala and fuji apples.

The setting was beautiful.

The kids decided to explore the corn maze.

It was massive, but they didn't explore all of it. I didn't try it out because corn mazes make me claustrophobic.

We bought apple cider donuts, which were yummy! Jalen was in heaven with his carameled apple.

Apple crates.

Grandad's was a fun place to spend some time.

I made a yummy apple pie - I didn't make the crust from scratch, but it was still good.

And apparently everyone liked it.

And in other great news - we were finally able to go back to church in person!

And I was finally able to wear my new skirt.

It has been a crazy time, but we love each other and life in the Batchelor Pad is good.