Go, Go, Goers!

One of the new items on the spooky holiday bucket list is to hit up the MN Zoo pumpkin fest. There are 5,000+ pumpkins on display, and because the spectacular runs for a month, the pumpkins are switched out regularly. Last year the theme was all about the different decades. For 2019, the theme is "Around the World". It's hard to get tickets for a weekend show, so we ended up going on Wednesday night, and there were still a lot of people there. We learned last year that while there's a people-jam at the beginning of the display, the path is wide enough that we can skirt around the crowds and get ahead of them, so we aren't blocked by a ton of people. We all are much happier when we follow that plan! There are so many pumpkins there that I only captured the carvings that I really loved. France Germany Germany Greece Greece The Count Ariel  Minions Egypt Africa Zombie eating a brain b

Another fall week has wrapped up and we're seven days closer to the holidays. I've noticed that as I've gotten older, my year seems to be broken into chunks, according to what's happening with school, the kids, the holidays, etc. For now, we're inching closer to the 2019 holiday kickoff, starting with G's 6th birthday next week!! But, that's a tale for a future post. :) This week we focused on the upcoming Halloween adventure. Both kids have confirmed their costumes will work, and we have the appropriate layers to wear if it's super cold outside. We have a slight change in plans from our usual Halloween escapades, as a key member of our trick-or-treating crew has moved out of the neighborhood...and I'm not quite sure what we're going to do, and where we're going to go. Gotta get that figured out soon! Last year we ran out of time to carve pumpkins, and for me, that's a key activity of the Halloween season. So, yesterday, we made sur

One of the things on our fall bucket list that we do each year is a trip to an apple orchard. We've bounced around to a variety of different orchards, and a few years ago, we discovered one that is just right for us...not so packed full of activities that it's overwhelming, but not so simple as to only have a store and not even allow us to pick our own apples. The orchard we now visit is juuuuuust right! There's a little playground for G, a tractor/hayride to take us out to the apples, and even a small pumpkin patch to comb through. The little shop on site has plenty of treats and goodies, and it promotes a laid back atmosphere. Perfect for us! We picked a variety of different apples....Honeycrisp, Sweet Tango, and Honey Gold. We discovered the Sweet Tangos last, and man, I think we all wish we had found those first. They are SO good! When we got home from the orchard on Sunday afternoon, I used all of the Honey Gold apples to make a yummy apple crisp. I even had enou

It's here, it's here, fall is finally here! We had one weirdly warm day this week (mid 80's and humid) and then the rest of the days have been in the 50's-60's...perfect for snuggling into sweaters, enjoying pumpkin spice drinks, and getting a better night's sleep (no more hot bedrooms!) Not so perfect for the middle schooler who insists on wearing flip flops and shorts, with no jacket...and let's not forget going to the bus stop with wet hair each morning. But, we will work on modifying that... To welcome fall, I put together this fun, decorative piece to greet visitors as they enter our home What a week...busy at work, busy at school, busy making plans for future outings. The older I get, the more I really, really look forward to the weekends, and not having to get up at 5am to get my work day started. Turns out that 6:30am is more of a natural wake-up time for me...but everyone else in my family is up much, much earlier. At least they let me sleep