Colors

It feels like September.  Or maybe October, but definitely not November.  I can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week.  After living in Minnesota for the past five years, we're used to enjoying fall from about the second week of September until the middle of October.  Then winter comes full-force.  We've barely taken out our long-sleeved shirts this year.

So it's been a strange shock to our system when fall doesn't arrive until November here in Birmingham.  But boy has it been beautiful.  We were all worried that the leaves wouldn't be changing much since we've suffered from a serious drought all summer.  Thankfully, God decided to bless us anyway with gorgeous fall colors.  Since Birmingham is so hilly and mountainous, you get peeks of color across the horizon all the time when you're driving around.

I haven't been good about getting out and photographing it like I'd like to, but I did snatch a couple of pictures this week.  One is from the plane as I was landing in Birmingham on Friday afternoon.  I've never had the pleasure of flying into fall colors. After landing in a very very brown Arizona earlier in the week, this was quite a treat. 

The other picture is from the top of the mountain at a little hot dog stand in Hoover where you can see the whole valley of colors.  We stopped there briefly on Saturday while driving around with some friends.  Richard and Jennifer took on a tour of Birmingham and showed us some great little shopping areas, museums, places to eat, and things to do.  I highly recommend finding people like them who are willing to show you the sights--not each individual sight necessarily, but just to show you where everything is, and give you a taste of what you can enjoy in the city.  It was really fun to hear all about the city and see some beautiful areas that we can go back and enjoy.