October Here

Weather's cooling and leaves are changing color, trees are losing leaves and become more bare everyday. It's not dark when we wake up, and dark when we have dinner. To start off the month of October, we had some visitors.

I didn't have to work for three days due to it being a Chinese national holiday, so my good friend April came out for a few days (her husband joined a day later). She arrived on the first Saturday of the month and I went out to pick her up from the airport. An old friend of Lawrence's messaged him and said he was also in town from Switzerland for a wedding, so Lawrence went out with Nick while I picked up and hung out with April.

The next day, April's husband Adam arrived and we went apple picking at Royal Oak Farm Orchard, which is northwest, up near the Wisconsin border. None of us have ever been apple picking at an orchard before. It was a little chilly and overcast, and maybe a little over-priced, but it was a pleasant experience. We got to get pulled by a tractor through the orchard. We got soooooo many apples. Each of us came away with 1/2 a peck. I don't know exactly what a peck is, but just believe me that it's a lot. We tried to come up with as many apple recipes as we could including pie, baked German apple pancakes, pork chops, baked French toast, just raw apples. (We never actually ingested the last ten or so because they froze in our fridge and just were rotten after that). Needless to say, we've been appled out for a while.

 Lawrence had to take a day off to go into the immigration office and fill out a form for his actual green card, which still has yet to arrive. (Yes, he's here legally, the visa in his passport counts as his green card until the plastic one is printed and issued.) As I can figure, the guy at border control in Dublin never filed the paperwork and the US Department of State was never made aware of Lawrence's arrival, so the Permanent Resident card paperwork was never forwarded to them. Fortunately he was able to get there pretty easily on the train, because our car started having some issues.

So that same day he had it towed to a mechanic. Luckily Lawrence also had the following Monday off for Columbus Day, because the mechanic closed early on Friday and was closed Saturday for Jewish Sabbath. So it wasn't until Sunday that we found out that the engine needed to be replaced. (I think something had resulted in a drastic oil leak while Lawrence was driving sometime during the week.) Well, the car itself was only worth about $1000 (if we're being generous), and considering a new engine would cost about that, I decided it's better we just get a new (to us) car. I've already put a good $2000 into the car fixing this and that and replacing pieces in the last two years. I just didn't think it would be worth it to fix it to only have to replace something else three months later. I mean, it was an older car with over 160,000 miles on it. 

So Monday came and we got a rental, which Lawrence picked me up from work in. And we had a pretty stressful day, starting at a dealership in the south side (that will be the only trip we take to the south side for us, I think. Let's just say it's not a place you want to be after dark.) There had been a car there that Lawrence liked on the internet, but it really was not our cup of tea when we saw it in person (beige interior...*shudder*). We were having some trouble getting financed for anything else--and didn't really like the dealership, so we left and went to a dealership out in the suburbs. It was about 7:45 when we got out there.

There was a car there we had intended to get, but we couldn't get credit approval for it because there isn't much credit history on us (Lawrence has none because he's never lived in the US, and I just don't ever use credit), even though we had a good amount for the down payment and a decent score. It was late, we were tired and hungry and finally we got approved for a car and came home with a 2012 Ford Focus with less than 25,000 miles on it. So we've bought our first car together. To sum the whole experience up: It's one I hope not to repeat any time soon, and I might just go by myself the next time.

As it's Fall/Autumn now and it's getting cold now, we haven't been outside much in the last month. We did get out to the Botanical Gardens one Sunday afternoon, though. It wasn't much of an outing really, but it got us out of the apartment.




The day before Halloween, we got invited to carve pumpkins with another couple (and their tiny breadloaf-sized baby girl). It was fun. We aren't always so social, and Lawrence hasn't every really fully experienced the joy of pumpkin carving.

Happy Halloween!

~Jack O' Skellington and the Calverts

September

September was a busy month, with the semester under way. Regardless, over Labor Day weekend we decided to take a trip to Orlando and visit Universal Studios. Mostly for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We left Friday night after work (our flight was delayed a couple hours due to a hurricane over northern Florida) and finally landed around midnight and got into our hotel around one and collapsed into the giant king-sized bed (being awake for nearly 18 hours straight is killer.)

We got up and got breakfast, and promptly caught the shuttle to the park. We had prepaid tickets so didn't really have to wait in line, and we had arrived at the park early enough that we didn't have to spend too much time in lines. I led us straight to the Harry Potter section, set to get a wand first thing at Ollivander's. However, we were on the wrong side, so we took the Hogwarts Express to the other park (Diagon Alley/London). The train is awesome. The inside has compartments just like the movie, and the windows are actually screens designed to look like the English countryside passing, and Hogwarts and London. The compartment windows have shadows of students passing.

We went straight for Ollivander's and waited in line for a bit outside (you can go straight into the shop without waiting in line, but they do a little wand presentation), and the dragon on Gringotts let off a little breath of fire. Even though it's high up, you can still feel the heat. We watched the little presentation, (I passed on letting the costume Ollivander presenting me my wand as there were a handful of kids in the crowd so I let them have it instead). I did get a wand, one that interacts with the park. We had butterbeer and pumpkin juice and got candy at Honeydukes and walked through all the little trinket shops.

We had lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, rode the Gringotts ride. I was wearing my glasses and was worried about losing them on a roller coaster, so we didn't ride too many. It was so hot, though. We felt as though we were melting so we popped onto the Jurassic Park ride, something I remember from my childhood, though I remember the dinosaurs being much bigger. We got soaking wet on another river ride. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant on the City Walk (too much food).

The next day we went an hour earlier so we could miss the lines for the rides, which actually worked out well. We rode the Hogwarts ride, which you walk through the castle for. The castle is really cool, they have so much detail in everything inside.  The ride made me a little motion sick, but it's probably the longest ride in the park. We rode another roller coaster, and Lawrence got a little nauseous and we didn't go on anymore roller coasters (we did go on some smaller rides though).

We managed to make it through too much rain for the most part, until we were on our way out of the park and the heavens opened up monsoon weather. We were drenched when we got back to the hotel. My Uncle Alex lives in Orlando, and after a couple days of phone tag, we managed to get a plan together for dinner. It's been over twenty years since we last saw each other (I was practically a baby the last time he saw me). We went out for sushi for dinner, and then dessert at the restaurant my uncle works. We were up early to return to Chicago and spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching movies.

The rest of September was far less exciting. School, work, cooling weather. Tooth crown, new contact lenses. Thought I broke the laptop, Lawrence took it to a coworker to brought it back to life. At least for now.



The seasons are moving forward and Autumn is here in full.