"Autumn: the year's last, loveliest smile"

I love fall. I love the chipper brisk air, the sweaters, raking leaves, pressing apples, finally eating all the stuff in the garden, the orange red yellow and brown. This has been the first fall in 4 years that I haven't been super stressed, super busy working, or super engaged so I am drinking it in!! When I'm driving around I look out my window amazed...how could I have missed this whole season for so long!?! I love change. I love when the frigid winter melts into a brand new spring, when suffocating heat succumbs to a brisk fall air which then builds till snowmen grace the front lawn (or in the case of the Bowen household, snowmen on the roof tops).

Seasons represent a lot to me. They remind me of the variety I get to experience in life. That sometimes I'm am in the summer of my life and everything is care free, then without a moments notice those times can jerk into icy winters. But to remember that spring will always come sooner or later. The important thing is to enjoy the moments I am in now whether it be the "winter" or "summer" season of my life. Or like Robert Braut says:

"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were big things"

On to the more exciting things! My family decided to get some family pictures before Ben leaves on his mission (which reminds me again of how fast life moves!). My brother (er, technically "in-law") Josh did an excellent job! He gets better and better the longer he does photography. If you want to see more of his amazingness click here!

Here are our lovely faces:

Ben, Dad, Josh, Austin, Michelle, Mom, Jenn, Beck, me

Josh was just messing around with lighting and snapped this. I thought it was a keeper

What a fine lookin' man!

I was thinking of sending it out as our Chirstmas card :)

We were going for a good med school application head shot. I think we got it!

Sweet Becky :) I don't know why we took this other than she looked good!

To infinity and beyond!!

And finally our missionary :) Daaaaang! He has become one handsome fellow!

I can't believe it's time for Ben to go on a mission. While growing up people thought Ben and I were twins. We both had brown hair, brown eyes, and because I was small for my age Ben (3 1/2 years younger) and I were about the same size. We were buds :) We played horses, loins, pretended we were Swiss Family Robinson in our tree house, and played battleship by throwing dirt clods at each other from over the corn rows (not the smartest of ideas). Ben would sleep with me when he got scared at night (he might not remember that, he was pretty little), and he would always try to scare me by pretending to be the bubble gum monster (an old TV show...it was really scary for a 7 year old!).We would come up with brilliant plans like cutting a hole in the wall between our rooms so we could have a "secret" passageway between rooms. The plans was that this hole would enable unlimited playing time after lights out. Dad shot that idea down pretty quickly :) We were always trying to come up with secret things: secret clubhouse behind the china hutch, secret hiding places between the three pine trees out front, secret handshakes, secret languages and codes. We had some good fun growing up :)
We sort of halted communication for a couple of years, but now that we are both out of the land of teenagers it has been great to have him back! And now he is leaving :( Ben will be a wonderful missionary. California will be lucky to have him. But I'm sure going to miss him while he is gone. I guess having him gone is winter, but being a missionary is summer? Good luck, Elder Bowen :)