SUCH a busy weekend!!

Wow, this weekend reached a new level of busy. On Friday evening, we went to a get-together at McGee's cousin Kelly's house. She was having the whole family over to celebrate their cousin 's homecoming from Syria. He's been deployed overseas for many years, but he's been able to have a few visits home over the past few years (including for Kelly's wedding that McGee and I were also at over the summer). We ended up staying there til about 11pm, so it was a pretty late night for us considering we were so exhausted after such a long week.

On Saturday morning, we woke up pretty early to head to Linvilla Orchards to go apple picking, and to get some pumpkins and gourds to decorate with! I really love the pumpkin we picked (I'll take a picture of that on Halloween). We had fun picking lots of good apples, and I'll be making a pie within the next day or two, as well as some other apple goodies.

This was the incredible selection of pumpkins! Ours is a beauty, but you'll have to wait to see it! 

Here's McGee getting ready to pick lots of apples! 

He's armed and ready! And you can see my shadow... haha

After the orchard, we stopped by Total Wine to stock up on cider, wine, etc to get us through the winter. That wasn't actually our plan, but that's what it turned into. Haha :)  We won't need any wine, etc for many months. We'd wanted to buy some wine to take to dinner that night though, because we were going out to dinner with McGee's folks at an amazing family-run Italian restaurant that allows you to bring your own bottles of wine to enjoy with your meal. So, after we stocked up on lots of alcohol, we went home to clean our house since McGee's parents were coming over in a few hours. They came over at about 5pm, and we went in the yard with them and Guinness so they could see some of Guinness's tricks, etc. We all had fun hanging out at the house for awhile, and then we headed over to the Italian restaurant and had some nice wine and amazing food. I had chicken saltimbocca with homemade pasta. Sooooooo good.

Then, as if we weren't tired enough, McGee and I went to a candlelight Ghost Tour of Fort Mifflin. We arrived at the Fort around 9pm (maybe a little after), and tours were supposed to depart every 15 minutes or so, and they were supposed to last about an hour. Well.... it turns out the guy that was supposed to give our tour couldn't be found. He hadn't returned from his last tour, and his tour group actually returned without him. He finally arrived around 10pm (and the gates to the fort shut at 11pm) and apologized for being so late but said he was busy talking with some ghosts in a corner of the Fort and couldn't leave them. McGee and I tried not to laugh because this guy was NOT joking, but we figured that "busy talking to ghosts" probably meant that he was busy smoking a little something-something. He was totally serious about talking to the ghosts though, and went on to tell us about this ghost of a 5 year old girl that he gets along really well with, and he said she was very active tonight. I was immediately regretting coming to the Fort for a tour, because I really hadn't thought it was going to be like that at all... The website made it sound like it was more of just a historical tour, where they tell you some of the cool historical ghost stories of the area, so I thought that might be kinda entertaining and get us in the Halloween mood. I had been super excited. But, it was SOOOOOO lame!! I'm not sure if a different tour guide would've been better or not, but the whole tour was our guide saying "Did you hear that?" and talking about voices or noises he was hearing, and stopping the tour to "listen" for things... It was like an episode of Ghost Hunters or something. It was so lame, and I was bummed. The Fort is super cool though, and I want to stop by during the day sometime so I can see more of it.

McGee waiting (for an hour) for the tour guide... 

He was still a good sport though. 

Here's a picture I tried to take of the fort at night. 

And today we went to a bunch of Open Houses!!  We're soooooo exhausted. 

Yay for Fall!!!

Last weekend was quite eventful! On Saturday morning, we woke up really early to take Guinness to Petsmart to have him groomed. He was way over-due for a bath, and his nails were getting quite long so we figured it was time for a grooming appointment! We don't take him there very often (like every 2-3 months), but when we do we usually have a nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel while we wait for him. So, we thoroughly enjoyed Cracker Barrel (they have the best coffee!!), and when it was time to go pick him up, The Petsmart groomers gave us his "report card" when we were leaving, and... I was not a happy dog owner.

Umm... Yeah. They gave my boy a C+. Sooooo not cool.... He may be a little hyper, but he is NOT a C+. He's a B- at the very worst I'd say...  And they're giving him a C+ because he doesn't like the blow dryer?!!??  What the F. I don't like the blow dryer either... so I don't blame him. I was not impressed with them after that. Plus, the people we dealt with that day (and have dealt with the last few times) really didn't seem to like dogs at all, and it seemed like they hated their job and were pissed to be there... so... we all in all didn't feel happy after that appointment. We're still terrified of clipping Guinness's claws on our own, but we're going to do all of his baths on our own now (we just have to figure out how exactly... It gets way too cold to do it outside, and we can't have him in our bathtubs with how huge and crazy he is now... his nails would murder a tub). Oh plus, Guinness always seems really traumatized after his appointments, and he just sleeps all day (which is nice kinda... but he probably hates it). 

Here he is in the stupid scarf they gave him... His tail looks extra cute though. 

He's quite traumatized... 

But then he slept all day, while I did some reading for our trip to Belgium, etc!!! I am getting SO beyond excited for our trip. I've read more about the B&Bs we're staying at, and I'm so happy with the ones we've picked. The reviews keep getting better and better on TripAdvisor. And we've definitely nailed down the big stuff we want to go see, and we're in the process of buying the museum tickets so that we don't have to wait in line for them when we're there (the line for the Anne Frank house can take up to 5 hours sometimes!). We've also written down a few ideas for some places to eat in some of the locations, but we're probably going to mostly just wing it when we're there. It's coming up so soon!!!  

On Sunday, we made the best dinner ever! We made carnitas, and it turned out awesome. I tried to take a few pictures with my phone, but the color/quality of the pictures isn't the best. But trust me, it was sooooo good, and if you need a good carnitas recipe just let me know!!  

My Fall Bucket List is coming along quite nicely! And we've added a few things to the list too. We added a few movies, because I was flipping through the "Halloween" section on Netflix and saw one movie that I've been wanting to see for years (Rosemary's Baby), and a movie that McGee had never seen (Nightmare Before Christmas), so we added those! Oh and we also added a Ghost Tour, because there's a historical ghost tour at Fort Mifflin, which is supposedly one of the most haunted places in the country! My mom heard about the fort on a show she was watching, and when she mentioned it to me I looked it up online and they were having ghost tours for two weekends around Halloween! We're doing that this weekend, and the tour is done by candlelight which should be super cool. We're also going to an apple orchard this weekend!! I've already made some soups and breads, and some pumpkin goodness... But there is much more to come so I'm not crossing those off yet. 

Oktoberfest

This weekend was lots of fun! Saturday was pretty chill, and on Sunday we went out for breakfast at this little diner down the street from us. We hadn't eaten at that diner yet, and we both loved it! We'll definitely be back. And after that we went and checked out a few Open Houses for houses that we'd liked a lot on Zillow. Sadly, the Open Houses made it possible to cross both off of our list... The one house had a terrible backyard (zero privacy, and no way at all to fence it in for our crazy dog), and the other house had a HUGE apartment building right behind it that was just towering over the backyard. They'd managed to hide that in their Zillow listing. The biggest lesson I've learned so far about house hunting is that you can NOT trust pictures online, because there are some amazing photographers that know some crafty tricks.

After our Open Houses, we drove about an hour north to the cute little town of Bethlehem, where they always have the Yuengling Oktoberfest! I have to say, I think this year was their biggest one yet. There were SO many people, and it was lots of fun!!  The weather could not have been more perfect either. It was a very sunny day, and the high was in the low 60s, but if you walked to a shady area it was really chilly! So, you could warm up in the sun and cool off in the shade. It was pretty darn perfect. I wasn't the best about taking pictures this year, and I was mainly taking pictures of the really cool venue, because I just think it's super beautiful. Every year it's held at the SteelStacks, which was the original site of Bethlehem Steel (which was founded in the 1800s, and was America's second largest steel producer and largest shipbuilder).  There were lots of good beer options everywhere, tons of yummy food options (sausages, schnitzel, strudel, etc), and lots of vendors selling cool stuff. We have been wanting a bat house, and were actually just talking about it on the walk into the venue, and then there just so happened to be a guy selling these super cool bat houses and bird houses made out of reclaimed wood! We bought one of his bat houses, and he gave us tips on where to put it, etc. It's going to just sit in our basement until we have a more permanent residence though.

McGee's excited!! 

The Dachshund Races (and you can see our beer mugs at the bottom of the picture... )

You can see one of the dachshunds running! And there's an owner waiting for her dog to cross the finish line. 

Super cool steel stacks!

You can also see some of the scarecrows from the scarecrow competition. 

This is the ArtsQuest building, and there are some tents set-up for beer tents and for a few bands.

We got home in enough time to make dinner and then watch the end of the Chargers game, and all of the Eagles game. Guinness had a great time napping on me during the Eagles game! All of these pictures are taken at various times throughout the Eagles game. It was pretty darn cold in our house, but we're trying not to use our heater until a little later in the season (so I'm bundled up in a sweater and some flannel PJ pants... and eventually I put a blanket on too). 

The initial sleeping position... 

Then he shifted his sleeping position.

Then he woke up to watch McGee celebrate after the Eagles scored one of their many touchdowns.

Then he watched the game for a few... 

And then he passed out again. I fell asleep shortly after this too... 

October is here!!!

Wow, Autumn is definitely upon us! I don't want to talk about the weather TOO much, because I don't want to anger all of my friends/family in the Sacramento area that are still dealing with some annoying Summer heat that just won't stop... but Fall has definitely hit the Philadelphia area. The leaves are all still fairly green and haven't fallen yet, but I think there should be some beautiful changing leaves very soon (and you know I'll bombard you with tons of pictures of trees when that does happen). It's been pretty darn frigid around here for the past two weeks or so, and today was so chilly that my lightweight fleece wasn't even warm enough! I took Guinness outside for a quick bathroom trip, and I was wishing I had on a warmer sweater.

And with that in mind, I decorated our little rental house for Halloween! I haven't totally finished it, and I did kind of a lazy job so far... but there's still time for me to improve it. I basically put everything on our fireplace mantel, because that's the only place that Guinness can't reach. Last year I was able to put stuff on our dining room table because it was up against a wall, but now it's in the middle of the floor so Guinness can reach all sides of it... NOT good. So, our mantel is super-decorated (on top of and around all of our electronics....) until I figure out some other options.

Here's a collection of some cute decorations! 

This is the new tealight holder I got at the big Yankee Candle store a few months ago with Lindsey! I'd mentioned in that blog post that I bought a few Halloween decorations, and this is one of them! It's very Poe-esque to me. 

Here's a cute bat that my parents got me!! 

Here's a cool pumpkin wood cutout my parents got me, and then 3 gourds from Reagan for coming to her birthday party (more on that later!)

This is one of the two Yankee Candle scents I'm currently obsessed with. The other one is Apple Spice, and it is AMAZING. 

Last weekend I drove down to visit Lindsey, and help her celebrate her daughter Reagan's 3rd birthday! The party had a farm theme, and Lindsey even organized a petting zoo and pony rides at her house! There were lots of cute animals that I had a great time petting, but my favorite was the little cow. The cow was so cute and chill, and it even took a nap towards the end of the party. I loved it, and I think we bonded.

Here's my little cow sleeping! So precious. 

Here's Reagan and Colby in the cutout that Lindsey made!

Here's a goat named Tank, and Colby. 

Here's Lindsey walking next to both of her daughters on the pony. 

 This weekend is the Yuengling Oktoberfest, so I'll definitely take some pictures of that! I hope you're all doing really well, and I hope you're all enjoying some lovely Fall weather, or that you will be very soon!! My fingers are crossed that Sacramento area temperatures cool off very soon!!