Streets of Gold

Ahhh FALL! Don't you just love the crispness in the air and that certain smell that fall brings? As excited as I am for fall, I still can't quite believe it's here. I feel like I got jipped of summer. Where did it go? I haven't even gotten my spring cleaning done yet! Okay, so I'm a few seasons behind, but in my neighborhood, you can't miss the changes that come with this season. We have so many lush, full, old trees. I love it! They give us so much nice shade in the summer, and in the fall, they give us a rainbow of colors up and down our streets.

My favorite street in our neighborhood is a block or so away from our house and it's not a through street. It's a loop and it's where we have our parade on the 4th of July. They have the best trees and they always turn the brightest orangey-yellow. Since most people have kept their trees on this street, they're all so tall and they form this beautiful archway over the street. When the leaves start to fall from these trees, they cover the street and it is picturebook perfection. This is the week! Since it will probably be our last Fall in this neighborhood, I wanted to soak in the process this time. We went for a walk on Sunday and the change was just beginning.

It's perfect timing for the leaves to fall. Since it hasn't rained (yet) they're still all nice and crunchy and the neighborhood kids are all out raking and playing in the leaves.

The change happened so fast this year. By Wednesday, all of the leaves had changed and most had fallen with the wind. We had to take a walk to capture this, but it was starting to get dark.

So as I was driving past yesterday, I pulled over and snapped a quick shot before they're all gone and cleaned up. The pictures don't quite do it justice.

They're just something about fall isn't there? I love Fall Conference of my church too. It's so nice to stay inside and listen to such uplifting thoughts all weekend. I'm not sure why, but I was so emotional throughout it all this time. I got teary-eyed at almost every talk I heard. I'm so glad we have this twice a year to hear from our sweet prophet and to be inspired to try and do better. So, back to Fall. I'm loving it now, but I will be cursing it in about a month when our tree decides to shed its leaves. We have a great (huge!) tree, but its always the last to bloom in the spring, and the last to change and drop in the fall. So our leaves are usually the gross slimey ones that are no fun to clean up. We usually have about 50 + bags of leaves in front of our house by the time we're done cleaning them up. Plus this year, I'll be doing it on my own since Dave will probably be in North Carolina. Stay tuned for the post with bags and bags of leaves...Despite this, I still love Fall, putting on a cozy sweater, and lighting a pumpkin candle.