Sunday, October 28, 2012

Birthday Fun

My 26th birthday came and went, and it was a lovely day!  (even extended into birthday week, woohoo)

I did have to work since it fell on a Tuesday, but that's alright...I like work.  My awesome coworker Jenna made me peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, so that certainly brightened the day!  Brad was at school that evening, so we delayed our celebrations until the weekend (he also had exams every day that week, soo...it was a celebration for both of us).  He did get me the complete 8-disc collection of the Harry Potter movies, waiting for me when I got home.  Now he has to watch them all with me though...

I got a lot of lovely cards from family members, which is special when we're so far away from everyone.  I'm really looking forward to our TX visit in December.

That Saturday, we went to Indian Ladder Farms.  I had been bugging Brad about going to a farm for awhile...not something I usually feel strongly about, but up here apple cider donuts are a "thing" and I hoped to find somewhere with a corn maze/hayride, as well as find lots of pretty fall foliage to take pictures of.  You know, all the general fall-ish stuff.  And there are a lot of farms up here, so it became my birthday wish.

Indian Ladder didn't have a corn maze, or a hayride going on at the time, but they had fresh delicious apple cider donuts.  Yum!  Also, they had a petting zoo.  Bonus.  I got to pet and feed the goats, including the little baby goat with its tiny little bleat (my favorite!)

Indian Ladder also had a "nature trail" up a hillside through some trees, and we walked it so I could take some leaf pictures (and to work off the cider donuts).  We got a little lost...there were several opportunities for taking one path or the other...but eventually we made it out.  Then we ate at the little cafe they have in the store.  A lovely lunch, and I had some yummy apple cider, but our waitress seemed to forget about us when it was time for the check (and Brad was trying to get to a study group).  There were only five tables in the cafe, so I think it took some effort on her part to avoid looking our way, but all the same, we had a good time at the farm.

 The legendary apple cider donut (we took home a dozen)

 This goat was really into the trash being picked up in a nearby pavilion

 Babyyyyy (favorite)

 Bonding

 Bonding (I could only pet it after Brad did successfully) 

 The feeding experience was kind of weird.  And slimy.


 Babyyyyy

 Crazy goat

 Crazy eyes


 If I were a goat, I would like to be up high too



 Pretty hillside

 Their horizontal pupils fascinated me

 Forlorn



 Starting on the nature trail






Heading out of the nature trail

After Brad's study group that night, we went to Century House restaurant here in Latham.  They were participating in Restaurant week (three-course meal for $20.12) and we had a gift card (thanks, Frederick family!) so we tried it out.  The meal was yummy; I had a spring roll, butternut squash and ricotta stuffed shells, and pumpkin cheesecake.  Brad had a burger (he preferred to go with that instead of the two options for the restaurant week entrees).  Again, we were forgotten when it was time for the check, and it took 2.5 hours from when we sat down (early - 5:30) till we left, but the company was great :)  and still, a nice birthday dinner!

On Sunday the birthday fun continued - I checked the mailbox and found cookies from Marybeth!  They were delicious and it's hard to top getting baked goods in the mail (certainly better than the political ads I've been getting every. day. from a certain assembly candidate.  I'm not going to vote for him, just as a punishment for sending me something every single day.)  Anyway, Marybeth's cookies did not last long in our household :) but they were a perfect way to wrap up birthday week.

This weekend has been rather uneventful (seems like every time I have a three day weekend, which is every other week, we don't really do anything epic with it!).  Brad had schoolwork, we watched the Baylor game yesterday (another sad game) and we've been getting ready for FRANKENSTORM.  Apparently in this area with trees and power lines a loss of power is possible/likely, so that's what we mostly wanted to get ready for.  I got some bottled water and flashlights (Walmart was already selling out of these things when I went on Saturday), and I asked Brad what non-microwave, non-oven, non-refridgerator meals he would want to eat if we lose power for 3-5 days.  He responded with this:

so this is our master disaster-preparedness plan.  PB sandwiches and Sun Chips.  Bring it on, Hurricane Sandy (and prayers go out to those who will face the brunt of this nasty thing).

I'll leave you with a few more bonus fall foliage pictures - the tree right outside our door!  This greets me every morning when I leave for the day (although, at that time...it's dark.  I leave before sunrise.  Sigh.)


Saturday, October 6, 2012

Autumn!

I love October.  Fall is my favorite season, the leaves are beautiful, pumpkin-flavored-everything makes me happy, and there's the birthday :)  Also love watching football - thankfully we've been able to watch the Baylor games so far using brother Dave's slingbox.  It's not the same as being there in Floyd Casey, but we work with what we've got!

The leaves are starting to change here in upstate NY and it's gorgeous.  I really want to take a drive north (up into the Adirondacks) or go to a farm (of which there are plenty around here) and fell all fall-ish, but we've had grumpy weather the past two weekends.  Hopefully I'll get some good fall foliage pictures whenever we get that chance, but so far here are some from around the apartment, and from the park where we run!

 Behind the neighboring apartment building.  I LOVE all of the reds around here.

 At our favorite park, The Crossings at Colonie (Colonie is the village in which our "hamlet" of Latham is located.  On TV/radio they pronounce it like Co-lo-NEE, emphasis on the last syllable, which is weird.)

 It's neat how many colors can be captured in one tree.  I see some more impressive examples of this on my drive home from work, but I practice safe driving and don't take pictures while driving, y'all.

One more from the park.  I love the random red tree among the others.

Aside from excitement about the season, I don't have much else to report!  Brad stays pretty busy with school.  It's weird being at home without him on Monday-Wednesday evenings (it's also hard to motivate myself to go run without him!)  He's enjoying his classes for the most part, it's just a lot of work with three graduate + two undergraduate classes.  He's gearing up for a week-full of midterms in two weeks (the week of my birthday, of course)...he has an exam every day!  I told him I'll just make myself a cake or something ;)

Sorry I don't have any other cool adventures like whitewater rafting to blog about, but we'll get out and do some fun fall things soon!