Fall in Columbia

Hello all! I was just going through some of our recent pictures and found some that I thought I'd post. Hope you enjoy!

So I had mentioned in a previous post that Mizzou was the first school to come up with the Homecoming idea. Obviously, they are huge into the Homecoming celebration. This year, of course, was especially huge with MU playing #1 ranked OU. Anyway, these pics are from something called "House Decks." All of the houses around Greek town build these huge, amazing sets and perform skits outside. I heard it was cool but seeing these sets in real life was incredible. I can't imagine the time and effort it must take. Anyway, this year had a theme involving board games, so all of the sets and skits revolved around a particular board game. I'm not sure if you can tell in this picture or not, but this set is huge. It was really fun to participate in the different events with Homecoming, especially with all of the cool traditions they have.

Another set. This one was based on Chutes and Ladders. Of course, the buildings on the board are places on campus. You can kind of see a Tiger on the right side of the screen. Rather than having people act it out, they made these life-size cutouts and used them instead.

And, back to College Game Day. This was where Justin got his face painted. What a guy! The best part of this? He got his face painted in order to get a free T-shirt. : )

This was the crowd the morning of ESPN Game Day, in front of the beautiful and historic columns. These columns are from the first building erected on campus, Academic Hall. In 1892, Academic Hall burned down and these 6 columns are all that remain. They're an easily recognizable symbol on campus and there are many traditions which revolve around them.

Oh, what a beautiful morning....

Justin pointing at the Game Day set. Justin, is your liver ok?

Ahh, autumn! My very most favorite season of the year. It's so beautiful! Thanks to Andrew for introducing me to Macro on my camera! It was just in time for me to take some close up pics of the beautiful leaves! If you're sick of leaves by the end of this...that's too bad for you.

I was able to snap some pictures while we did a church service project. We spent "Make a Difference Day" cleaning parks around this city. This park is not too far from us. It's totally AMAZING and beautiful! It's a park with a good size lake in the middle and some winding paths around the perimeter. Part of the lake is roped off for swimming and is actually complete with floating ropes things for lap swimming! Near the swimming area of the lake, they've also built a play area for little kids with water fountains (like at the Gateway Mall in SLC) that shoot water from the ground. Other areas of the lake are for small boats and fishing. They also have a bridge that stretches from one side of the lake to the other so that you can walk across. Yeah, this park is totally wicked awesome!

Same park, more leaves. I loved the contrast of the red leaves over the lake.

Ok, I'm obsessed. And I think I'll try and take some more before all of the leaves fall off the trees. : ) I just loved all of the colors on this one leaf. So pretty!