Happy Halloween!

I'm SO happy and excited that it's Halloween!!  I'm excited to sit outside tonight with our neighbor and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters!  Today (Wednesday) is my normal work-from-home day, so I'm so happy I get to work from home on Halloween!  I am watching The Sixth Sense right now, and I think I'll watch The Shining next!!  And we just carved pumpkins last night, so today I'm going to roast up the pumpkin seeds! 

I'll give you a better look at our pumpkins after tonight!  

We have had a really amazing Fall so far!!  We've been busy with lots of fun Fall activities, but we've also had lots of time to relax and enjoy being home.  Last weekend we were supposed to go camping at Assateague Island with McGee's family and a bunch of their family friends.  If you haven't heard of Assateague Island, it's the island that has a bunch of wild horses.  We tried to go camping there a few years ago with this same group (there's a blog post about it), but a hurricane decided to hit so we had to quickly go to a hotel.  Well, a nearby hurricane was supposed to cause a lot of crazy weather issues again last weekend (thunderstorms and crazy winds), so this time the group called it off ahead of time because they didn't want everyone to travel there and then have to scramble to leave again like last time.  So, we ended up having a free weekend!  Since the weather was supposed to be pretty terrible (crazy rain, etc), we thought it would be the perfect time to go to the Philadelphia Zoo!  We looove going to the zoo when the weather is terrible, because there are ZERO people there and the animals love it.  We had a great time and the zoo had lots of cool Halloween decorations, etc! 

You guys!  Look at the beautiful colors in the trees at the zoo! 

These two tigers REALLY wanted the leopard that was next to them! 

You guys!!  Seriously!!  Such a beautiful tree at the zoo. 

The otters were SOOOO playful while we were there!  We watched them for awhile! 

The giraffes! There's a new baby giraffe there.  

Beau!  The baby giraffe!  

Here's another picture of cute little Beau. 

We got the see the Sloth Bear climb the tree (SO crazy fast!) and go after this pumpkin that the zookeepers had hung from the tree! 

After he knocked it down he scurried down the tree SO fast and started eating his pumpkin.

Baby gorilla! 

The dad gorilla... He was NOT amused by the baby. 

Another AMAZING tree at the zoo!!!  I can't even handle all the pretty colors. 

Time for a Fall Bucket List update!!  We've done a LOT of the things from our list already.

We've decorated for Halloween (I'll take more pictures tonight and post them later this week!), we went and got apples/pumpkins/gourds, last night we carved pumpkins and today I'll roast the seeds, and we watched a LOT of Halloween movies!  You guys, Halloweentown is GARBAGE!!!  That movie was just awful.  I'd heard it was cheesy yet amazing like Hocus Pocus (and I loooove Hocus Pocus!), and it's actually just really terrible.  I apologize if you like it and I've offended you, but please know in your heart-of-hearts that Halloweentown is a really terrible movie.  I felt bad for all of the actors in it (especially the amazing Debbie Reynolds).  We will NOT be watching that one again!  But, all of the other movies have been AMAZING!! And for the "one more horror movie" we watched The Lost Boys.  That movie scared me SO much when I was a kid, but now it's just awesome and funny.  Kevin had never seen it, and he really liked it too!  It's 80s amazingness for sure.  

For the rest of the items on the list, we've definitely had lots of Oktoberfest beers (I love them!  I think they're my favorite kind of beer), and I've made some apple goodness!  I made apple-cheddar scones.  This weekend I will also be making an apple pie!  For pumpkin goodness, I haven't really made much aside from the Trader Joe's things I previously mentioned. We've made some soups but no breads yet, and we've definitely had some football and Crockpot Sundays!  And for the Fall camping, I'm not sure if that's going to happen this year or not now that Assateague was cancelled. We might still try to go in November, but I'm not sure if we'll have time and if the weather will cooperate. 

Apple cheddar scones!  They turned out really great.  

Apple picking! 

Happy Halloween!!  I hope everyone has a really fun and safe night!! 

A Few Fall Activities!

Fall weather is HERE, you guys!!  Finally!!  Yesterday it was really warm (like 80 degrees) with crazy humidity, and we also had some craaazy storms later in the day.  But, I think that was the end of Summer finally!!  Today it is definitely really chilly and sooo blustery too! 

Our neighborhood!  No Fall colors yet, but definitely some leaves starting to fall! 

Last weekend Kevin and I went to an Oktoberfest!  It was only about an hour away from us, and it was on a bunch of lists I found that listed the top Oktoberfests in the world! So, we HAD to check it out!  It was in a fairly small town called Reading, and it was definitely fun!!  They had some amaaaazing beer varieties, so we had 3 Oktoberfest varieties!  Spaten was the best one of the group we thought, but they were all delicious.  So, I've actually already had SIX Oktoberfest beer varieties this year!  I want to try to find Ayinger Oktoberfest beer though, because my dear friend Shannon said that it is her favorite!!  I've been keeping an eye out, but so far no luck. 

Our drive back from the Oktoberfest!  There were some Fall colors!  So, if they're happening about an hour north of us, it shouldn't be too long until it's Fall-y in our neighborhood too! 

Oh and we actually went to an Oktoberfest-ish party at a brewery that's about 5 minutes from our house!  It was their release party for their Oktoberfest beer, so the party was definitely Oktoberfest-y too.

Let's see, what else have we done off the list.... Oh!  We watched It!  We'd seen it before, but it had been quite awhile... and we saw that it was On Demand on HBO, so it seemed like a great time of year to watch that one!  They did such a good job re-making that movie. 

I've also mostly decorated for Halloween!  When Halloween is closer we'll put some decorations and lights in our windows so the trick-or-treaters can see them, but we're mostly decorated!  

That's it for now!  I'm going to go enjoy my relaxing Friday evening!!  I'm soooo tired from this week!!  I hope you guys have a great weekend!  Love you guys!!

It's Fall!! Kinda

You guys, it's finally Fall!!  Our weather is only kinda cooperating though... We've had some very crisp Fall-ish days, and then we've had some humid Summer-ish days too with crazy rain.  Today is one of the Summer-ish humid days with tons of rain, so that is very lame.  October is riiiiight around the corner, so the Fall weather had better come back and stay for MONTHS!

But, since Fall is supposedly here, I made a Fall Bucket List!  Here it is!

The only ones I have done so far is that I've made a few pumpkin things already thanks to Trader Joes (pumpkin cinnamon rolls, pumpkin ravioli, and pumpkin soup), and I've tried 2 Oktoberfest beers (Locust Lane, which is brewery very near us, and Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest), and of course we've watched some football.  So, nothing can be crossed off quite yet!  I think I've found a good Oktoberfest for us to go to (supposedly it's one of the 10 best in the world?), and I found a new farm/orchard for us to go to for apple picking and pumpkins. So, it should be an AMAZING Fall!! 

And one thing that always signals Fall in our neighborhood is that the deer are EVERYWHERE!  They're really out-and-about with lots of little baby deer too.  I've been able to take a few pictures while I've been on walks with Guinness!

This was early morning on the weekend!  It was so foggy and chilly - I loved it. 

This was early evening after work! Soooo many deer!!  

And something that's lingering from Summer is the bugs... They are insane right now.  Mosquitos are going nuts (I feel like I always have at least a few mosquito bites...), and the spiders are insane right now.  Here's a HUGE spider I found in our basement... It was on the wall right by the washer/dryer, and it was probably the size of a golf ball.  Ewww.  I calmly went back upstairs and asked Kevin to kill this one.  I will usually kill spiders on my own, but this one was just huge.  

SO GROSS.  

And I'm not sure if you can see the spider web here, but this was while I was out on a walk with Guinness.  The spider was huge (it's right on the middle of the web), and that web was bigger than a dinner plate.

A few weeks ago Kevin and I went to see Elton John!  He's on his farewell tour, and it was seriously one of the top 3 concerts I've ever been to.  It was SO great.  Elton sounded amazing, and he sang ALL of his hits!!  It was such a fun show. 

And a few weekends ago we went to a Union soccer match with Kevin's family!  Kevin and his friend Juliff have season tickets, and it was Kevin's cousin Brendan's last night in the U.S. before he went back to Italy, so we all got together for a few hours of tailgating and to watch the Union game.  The tailgating was awesome, and Kevin grilled burgers and hot dogs for everyone!  Unfortunately the game was not very lovely... The Union ended up losing by a lot. 

This coming weekend we're heading to New York for a daytrip on Saturday, and then on Sunday I'm thinking maybe I'll decorate for Halloween since it's almost exactly one month from Halloween!  Yayy!!