autumn fun

We've been loving this Ohio autumn so far. The leaves are at their peak of breathtaking colors, and the weather has been gorgeous. This post is just going to be my favorite autumn photos (of the kids) so far. I'm not even going to attempt to pare it down to a manageable number of photos - if I can't get enough, you can't get enough either.... right? :)

The library's story time this week was held at the pumpkin patch. Can you tell they loved it?
(Also pictured: Gavin's best friend Macey and her bro Zack.)

the kids' festive Halloween shirts

When they laugh together, everything is wonderful. :)

fun on the hayride

picking her hayride pumpkin

enjoying autumn

With pregnancy sickness and sometimes-unbearable humidity, our first Ohio summer was not my favorite. But now that the weather is cooler, I'm loving being outside with Gavin enjoying the beautiful leaves and beautiful temperatures. Here are a few recent photos.

not our house -a gorgeous nearby one

We only have a few small trees, but luckily this one provided a nice pile of leaves for playing.

We've also enjoyed putting up a few autumn decorations. We love the scarecrow motif because it easily covers both October and November decorating needs. (And we're bucking the trend of putting up Christmas decorations after Halloween.)

Happy autumn!

Pumpkin Patch

There's an adorable pumpkin patch in the middle of town (not far from our house) that we visited yesterday. Gavin loved the sea of pumpkins, and he instantly won the affection of the workers when he walked into the barn, wagon in tow, and said "Wow! This is cool!" 

Halloween weekend

Our Halloween weekend probably started Thursday night when we watched the Gerard Butler movie version of Phantom of the Opera. Jacob had never seen it, and he needed to be up on the plot in advance of our Saturday plans... Anyway, Phantom is definitely a creepy, Halloween-appropriate selection.

Friday night we attended the Halloween activity at church for which we made and decorated these cupcakes. We think they're pretty great. :) Also at the activity we handed out goodies to trick-or-treaters from our car. Jacob was ultra-embarrassed that I decided to hand out juice boxes (100% juice) rather than contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic by giving candy. He assures me our house will get egged if I do that when we get back to the USA.

Saturday we went to London with Becky & Mike. (You'll likely remember Mike from this post, but we've done lots of fun things with them that have featured on the blog.) We saw the brand-new West End sequel to Phantom, which is called Love Never Dies, also written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It opened in March of this year, and it was definitely Halloween weekend-appropriate. It takes place on Coney Island about 10 years after the events of Phantom of the Opera. The show was incredible, and the guy who plays the Phantom (Ramin Karimloo) is super-talented. We also loved the special effects, and some of the songs really featured Webber's genius.

[The show was at the Adelphi Theatre, which you might remember we've visited before (in 2008) to see a West End show. ]

You can see from the above photo that we didn't dress up for Halloween. We ate yummy Mexican food (below) before calling it a day. It was a great day, for sure.

Autumn in the kitchen

With Jacob's return home over the weekend, there's reason again to spend time in the kitchen. (Cooking for 1=depressing.) And with the onset of cold(ish) weather, Jacob and I are both huge fans of a steaming pot of soup or stew made from scratch. This week was my first interaction with fresh leeks, even though I've long loved leek & potato soup. Mine turned out super-delicious, and we both look forward to having it again soon!

And as I'm typing this post, the house is overflowing with the unmistakable, incredible aroma of split-pea soup. I've been cleaning out the freezer so we can freeze a few meals before Baby comes, and there was a ham bone from a few months ago that was just begging for split-pea soup. So delicious!

Other than the return of soup, our favorite autumnal thing in the kitchen is pumpkin. Last week when I saw this post about pumpkin cinnamon rolls (with a brown sugar glaze), I nearly made them immediately. But I'm glad I waited until today when Jacob was home to enjoy them too.
Hungry, anyone?

Looking autumnal

I walked through the village over the weekend enjoying views of autumn: colourful flowers and leaves. It's all very beautiful.

The other thing that goes along with this seasonal change is spiders. In addition to appearing in my house in all their massiveness, the spiders also spin beautiful webs in the windows and everywhere else they can. Due to a constant mist that fell all day today, the webs were more easily photographed. I hope you find the next few photos as beautiful as I do (and not creepy).

Windsor and Warwick

This week I went to 2 castles: Windsor (where Her Majesty the Queen still lives--it's one of her 3 primary residences, in addition to the many secondary ones) and Warwick (pronounced war-rick). Both trips I took with my friend Robyn and her family.

The day we went to Windsor Castle it rained torrentially, so I didn't take much time to photograph it. But it's absolutely magnificent! The castle was originally built by William the Conqueror back in the 11th Century. But the real highlight was the State Rooms, very poshly furnished and decorated. It must be nice to be the Queen!

The guards at Windsor (and all the royal residences) are super-cute in their big black fuzzy hats!

Warwick Castle was also originally built during the time of William the Conqueror in the 11th Century. Part of it also served as a very lavish residence of the Earls of Warwick. We also got to hear an interesting (and true) little ghost story told in the form of a haunted house--very spooky!

Other than a few little showers, it was a beautiful, sunny day. You can still see a few autumn colors and the glistening of the swelling Avon River in this photo from the top of one of the castle's towers--breathtaking.

(Jacob will be back this weekend to fill you in on the last of his Turkish adventures.)