westphal warriors strike again

"our ALS fund-raising walk in winston-salem was great fun and very successful. we had a fantastic turnout and the boone dermatology crew raised over $3000 for a worthy charity. in fact, the walkers took home the reward for most money raised by a corporate team! a big thank you to all of those who helped out! let's do it even bigger and better next year!"

this is the update from aaron's work website. as you can see the team has doubled since we first started walking in nc. thanks again to all those who walked, donated and contributed in any way to help us fight this disease. and especially thanks for sporting those ultra-brite t-shirts!! ;) and yes, little man also participated!

are you ready for some football?

quick weekend recap. friday aaron got home a little early and we were able to make the 5 o'clock showing of "choke" at the dragonfly theater. boone's first brew and view. we've been meaning to check it out but there really hasn't been a movie we've both wanted to see til now. this might be the way we do movies on the big screen. we were very impressed with the setup. you can eat and drink full meals in the actual theater. there are about 10 rows of chairs and tables and the front row is lined with couches. we ate dinner while we watched, pretty neat.

as far as the movie goes, very sexually graphic. i'm a big fan of chuck palahniuk novels and had read this one a while ago. i kinda forgot what it was about, but it all came flooding back as i watched. i'd say the movie is a pretty close representation of the book. so if you like the book, you'll probably like the movie.

saturday we headed over to watch a little app state football. rarely do i go. but since jerome was out of town, i caved and went with. i actually had a good time despite the 40 degree temps. here you can see josef the mountaineer riding in on his hog. we were just waiting for that head to come flying off. surprisingly, it didn't.

aaron doesn't mind explaining the game to me which he pretty much did the whole time. it was a good game to watch, app. state beat furman 26-14. i probably won't be going to any more games this year. the weather plays a huge factor in if i'll attend. i just really don't like it enough to endure the cold, snow, rain, etc. the next game is friday night, halloween. aaron and jerome plan on dressing up for it. now we're scrambling to find costumes. i've got an idea...now to make it happen...hmmm.

yesterday we did a little geocaching and started to attack the basement storage mess.

and as you can see, aaron did bring home a copy of the als walk team.

where the worms are so woolly

another jam-packed weekend for the westphals.

saturday we headed over to winston-salem for the als walk. we were quite surprised at how large the crowd was, easily twice as large as the walk in springfield. what was really great. thursday afternoon we found out we'd have a group of office staff walking with us. they even had t-shirts made for the event. it was great having so much support for such a worthy cause. we were both touched that everyone drove and hour and half both ways to walk. thanks everyone we truly appreciate it!!

unfortunately, i wasn't able to get any photos. we decided to bring the dogs along and i had a hard time corralling them and taking photos. i think someone did take a group photo, so hopefully i can get my hands on it sometime in the near future.

yesterday, we headed over to banner elk for the 31st annual woolly worm festival. it was a kinda cheesy event but apparently a must see/do in the area. it was a gorgeous day, so we didn't mind and actually enjoyed ourselves. (see photo above) we caught a few woolly worm races, drank some lemon shake-ups and listened to some bluegrass.

tomorrow i'm hoping to get some geocaching in. geocaching? what's that? yeah, it's been way too long since we've done any. yesterday i was hoping to get a few in while we were at the festival. unfortunately, i forgot the gps when heading out the door. i've got some new ones programmed in and if weather is permitting we'll get them done tomorrow. i wonder if there's any in jamaica. hmmmmm.

fall is finally here

we've had a busy, busy october. and it doesn't look like it's gonna slow down, at least not for a little while. last weekend we headed back to illinois to help celebrate mark's 60th birthday. a quick lowdown on where we were and who we were with.

saturday we stayed with the caraways. we visited a local pumpkin/apple farm with the kids, had a great steak dinner jason grilled up and then autumn and i proceeded to kick the boys butts in a game of trivial pursuit. we rule at 90's trivia.

sunday we headed over to jim and joyce's new abode for mark's surprise party. all of the boys were able to make it and even jay flew in from california to help celebrate. we got to see lots of family we hadn't seen in a long time, especially on aaron's mom's side. it was so great seeing everyone and meeting some new friends. matt and kristin announced that baby number two is on it's way! congrats!!

sunday evening we headed back to murphysboro to check out nate and katie's new home. it's super cute and so them! congrats to you guys! we did a little shopping monday for katie's new nieces and then headed home tuesday.

this past weekend has been packed full of activity as well. friday we went out with jill, jerome, todd and michelle for a belated birthday dinner for aaron. saturday we headed up to tweetsie railroad to check out the ghost train and all the other halloween festivities they had going on. the weather was perfect and we had a spooktacular time. today we headed up to sugar mountain for their make-shift octoberfest. rode up the chair lift for the second time this year. we laughed at how we've ridden it more without snow than with. it had gorgeous views and the leaves are in full color now. a definite plus in the high country.

here's the flickr set with all the photos we've taken so far. next week we head to winston-salem for the als walk.

gotta go. brian just texted me to play mariokart. man, i haven't played in forever.

walkin to dfeet

Aaron's mother, Donna, passed away from ALS in 2000. Her strength, courage and faith throughout her illness served as an inspiration to all who knew her. We are participating in this event to honor Donna and hopefully to help raise awareness of this debilitating disease.

If you'd like to donate, walk or learn more about ALS click here.