Our Festive Fall Weekend

This weekend we celebrated Fall to the max!  The weather was chilly but so beautifully sunny.  It was the perfect Fall weather.  It was so nice to have a weekend at home with no set plans.  We just flew by the seat of our pants all weekend, doing whatever we felt like, and boy did it feel good!

Row 1:

Celebrating my new job with beers at Rock Bottom (more on that later!)

Pumpkin spice pancakes to welcome the weekend

Row 2:

Simmons Farm to go pumpkin pickin'

Loads and loads of pumpkins

Row 3:

This guy was heavy

This farm was beautiful & the weather matched

Row 4:

A couple gourds I picked out -- my favorite is the yellow & green one

Festive Fall place settings

Row 5:

Brett posing with our mini pumpkin before he chopped it up to make soup

Our attempt at pumpkin soup... it looks pretty, but it wasn't very good...

Row 6:

Homemade pumpkin curry & rice -- now this recipe did turn out good! 

My cute hubby

Ahh, so in love with Fall right now...

Having a great week so far, hope you are too!*

Hefeweizen Brewing & a Super Mario Video

This past Saturday, I helped Brett brew some beer!  Usually this is something he does on his own.  But with a bum foot, he needed some help.  I gladly agreed because we were brewing a hefeweizen!  ...basically my favorite beer.  I brewed with Brett once before and this time around was way more fun.  We opened up the garage (where he brews) and were able to enjoy the beautiful day, while creating a deeeeelicious brew.  It went a little something like this...

 Fueling for brew day.

Breeeeewing!

Getting distracted by pretty things...

Hey, I AM a girl!

Taking pictures of really random things...

Ending the night at the bar with pizza & a hefeweizen...

that isn't nearly as good as ours will be!

(It takes a couple weeks before you can actually drink it,

but I KNOW it will be awesome!)

And now I will leave you with a video (I can't believe I'm posting this...).  After we got home from the bar, we played some Super Mario Brothers on the Wii.  I am ALWAYS toad because I love the noise he makes every time he is given more lives.  I often make the noise with him...



On that note... hopefully now you feel a little better about yourself because you are not as crazy as I am.  Hope your Wednesday is off to a great start!  Happy hump day!*

Christmas Vacation Recap

So, you would think having 10 days off of work would mean that I would have more time to blog... WRONG! I had all intentions of doing multiple blog posts throughout my Christmas break, but that did not happen (with the exception of my Merry Christmas and Happy New Year posts). I thought I was going to have a lot of down time, but I ended up keeping busy pretty much the entire 10 days... hence the lack of blogging. But that's okay because I was busy doing lots of fun things... let's recap, shall we?

1. Starting break off with rock climbing & $2 pint night at Rock Bottom!
2. Had a nice dinner in before the craziness of Christmas with our families began
3. Painted my nails sparkly in honor of Christmas
4. Brett & I celebrated "Christmas Morning" on Christmas Eve morning and gave each other our gifts then. Brett got me 2 more nutcrackers to add to my collection (Pirate & Cowboy)
5. Eating breakfast off the new Pfaltzgraff place settings Brett got me to add to my collection
6. My hubby enjoying breakfast :)

1. My penguin gift wrapping
2. Drinking Bailey's Irish Cream in my coffee Christmas morning at the Heher's in Erie
3. Playing with our nephew, Bradley all day (aren't his eyes amazing?!)
4. Uncle Brett & Bradley
5. Aunt Anna & Bradley (he loves us, I swear!)
6. Back down to Pittsburgh for Christmas #2 with my family: taste testing Georgetown Cupcakes!
7. Dancing in the kitchen with Mom
8. We wore matching dresses :)
9. My cute little owl that I got from my parents (This is as close to a real pet as I'll get...)

1. Spotted some penguin ice sculptures downtown in honor of the Winter Classic
2. Found my G-Pa's name in front of Heinz Field: John H Harris
3. Went to the Carnegie Science Center to see the AWESOME train village
4. Pretty winter sunset on my way to Rollier's while Brett fixed my parent's back door
5. INSTAX MINI!!! Gift from my parents for Christmas! I have been wanting one of these for a looong time
6. Some of my polaroids on our Christmas tree

1. On the road to our New Years Eve ski trip in Ellicottville, NY
2. Adorable little ski town at night
3. Blueberry beer at the Gin Mill (where we may or may not have eaten lunch AND dinner in the same day...)
4. Darren & Brett at the Gin Mill
5. Lee & Josh playing pool at the Gin Mill
6. Me, Jess, & Jenn at the Gin Mill
7. Jess, Dale, & Jenn at the Gin Mill
8. Snowy New Years Eve morning before skiing
9. My sweet ski hat... mind you, this was my first weekend skiing EVER
10. The views on top of the mountain were AMAZING
11. Rum & diet to kick off New Years Eve at the Ellicottville Brewing Company (I know, I am pathetic for not drinking BEER at the BREWING company... but I was full!)
12. Ellicottville Brewing Company growlers... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!*

1. Recovering from New Years Eve with more beer?
2. Delicious cinnamon muffins I made
3. Mmm, muffin & coffee... heaven
4. Being a big time fashion DON'T at the grocery store... sometimes I just don't care, but Brett decided to get this one on film
5. Brett and his homemade cheesecake (I asked him to give me his best smile & this is what I got...)
6. Brett's tasty homemade general tso's chicken stir fry... SO good

So that's how I spent my Christmas vacation. It was a much needed, awesome 10 days off. Now it's back to the grind. But Brett and I are starting to plan our potential Spring beach vacation to use up our flight credit we got from United Airlines! So that is definitely something to look forward to!

And, for the record... now that the holidays are over, can we just skip this whole cold weather thing and go straight to Spring weather? Who's with me??

Happy Wednesday!!* Half way through the work week already!

honeymoon!!

soo... it's the end of october.
and we went on our honeymoon in august.
and i am just now getting around to blogging about it...
better late than never, right?!

we went to california
and it was the best, most magical and fun trip ever*
i present to you,
our honeymoon via photos:

we were in california for 11 days, 10 nights.
we flew in and out of san francisco,
rented a car,
and went on a little roadtrip!
here is our adventures in a nutshell

1st stop:
sausalito
we stayed on a houseboat
and it was seriously awesome!
it was on the san francisco bay
and literally rocked back and forth.

2nd stop:
sonoma valley
we went wine tasting (and beer tasting).
we went to 2 wineries:
ravenswood winery
&
sterling winery
(amazing air ride up to the winery on the mountain!)
then, bounced to 2 breweries:
lagunitas brewery
&
russian river brewery
(super awesome band was playing)

3rd stop:
yosemite national park
we spent 2 days hiking,
seeing gigantic redwoods,
amazing waterfalls,
and incredible views.
pictures don't do this place justice!

4th stop:
pismo beach
got upgraded to the ocean front suite = amazing
learned how to surf!
saw a whale in the wild!
ate amazing italian

5th stop:
santa cruz
home of the craziest people i've ever seen.
stayed in a cute little cottage!
went ziplinging on top of the redwoods!
ate tasty mexican food,
and went to see SambaDa!
(really fun latin band)

6th stop:
san francisco
did lots of touristy things, so fun!
went to the top of the coit tower,
saw the golden gate bridge,
saw the painted ladies,
walked down lombard street,
went to some breweries,
met up with frank & amanda!

then after a fun-filled 11 days of pure romantic honeymoon bliss...
it was time to come home.

california is a beautiful, amazing place!
i know we will travel back there some day!

and that, my friends, is our honeymoon in a nutshell!
:)

(we already have the travel bug again...
...slowly planning our next trip!)

a love story

once upon a time

(yesterday, october 7th)
there was this girl
and she was really excited
because it was her & her husband's
2 month wedding anniversary
(we really like to celebrate the little things)

she was upstairs getting ready for their date
when her husband came home
and brought her these:

and she got even more excited...
(because little things really excite me)

and off they went on their little date...
first to dinner at bangkok balcony
for delicious pumpkin soup

and tasty chicken pineapple cashew thai

oh, and a bottle of wine
:)

then they ventured over to blue dust bar
for some tastey brews...
the selection was overwhelming

the girl opted for the southern tier pumking beer

(that came with cinnamon sugar on the rim!)

while the boy had various selections of
saison de buff by dogfish head, stone, and victory breweries

and it was the happiest perfect day for this girl
because she got to spend it with this boy...

the end.
:) :)