Pumpkins

It was a hot day at the beginning of October, but doing something fall-ish was fun! 

We celebrated the season by walking down to the church that's a couple blocks away and picking pumpkins to carve! We met up with the Kings in the street and walked over together. 

Tuck wasn't remotely interested in the pumpkins, but he loved the sticks and pinecones all around. He'd gotten his cone off just an hour before, so he was enjoying his freedom.

Obviously, the dog was thrilled about this photo op.

  

We came back to our house and ordered a pizza from Midtown Pies for dinner. After watching Jeopardy (of course), we got to work carving!

I wasn't sure what to carve, so Christina suggested a dog for Tuck. Here's what I drew to carve, and I'm pretty glad that I didn't end up going with that. Thankfully, rubbing alcohol got the Sharpie off, and I carved a face instead that I could pull off better.

A group picture at the end of the night.

 Here they are in all their glory - we have mine, Carson's and Josh's. 

 Unfortunately, the humid air got to our pumpkins only a few days into life. This is a picture of them four days later, right before we tossed them. They didn't age very well, and mine looks horrified at the moldy mess Carson's became.

Spectacular Colors

I love warm weather. I love sunshine. 

But the brilliantly colored leaves on the trees, and the sound of them crunching underfoot... I love that too. As great as it would be to be at the beach in October, enjoying the fall colors is a really spectacular trade-off!

Pumpkins!

So fall is different in the south. Different from Washington and Ohio, where as you know we lived for six years. In both places, we saw changing leaves, went apple picking, visited a corn maze, went to a pumpkin patch, wore sweaters, prayed snow would hold off as long as possible. And here, well it's not the same. Surprise, surprise, there aren't changing leaves, not much apple picking to be found (except in the produce department), and it's 90-something degrees for a good portion of the year. 

I loved experiencing a real autumn, since I grew up in the south and didn't get one. Crisp air, bonfires, crunchy leaves... It was wonderful and for that reason October has long been one of my favorite months. But to be honest, it's not so bad having 90 degree weather in mid-October. It definitely doesn't feel like fall except that the mornings are cooler, and to look around you wouldn't really notice much of a difference. 

So long story short, pumpkins don't wait until fall in Florida. From what I'm told (and this is based purely on what someone told me), they arrive on the scene, ready for harvest in the summer, which is not exactly prime pumpkin pie season. So they get trucked in and placed in supermarkets and in pretty displays on church grounds.

Which leads us to our first Tallahassee pumpkin patch: at a Methodist church near our house that we pass on the way to our church (I don't think there's a denominational monopoly on pumpkin patches, but our Presbyterian church doesn't have one). 

So picture everything in this post as it really was for us - on the corner of a busy intersection. Whereas in Spokane we were in a field of pumpkins that actually grew there, in Tallahassee we were across the street from a Super Lube and a Big Lots. It was a little funny. 

Funnier still were the people dressed in sweaters and special outfits for the pumpkin outing, completely overdressed but desperately wanting this fall activity to allow for fall clothing. It was a cool morning (low 70s) but by the time we were there the temperature had risen about 15 degrees. You've got to commend someone for sticking to their guns and wearing a flannel scarf and jeans when it's just under 90 degrees.

(See the Super Lube?)

The pumpkin patch works on an honor system. There are prices for each size pumpkin and a box to put cash or check in to pay for them, which I really admire because I'd guess they get taken advantage of often. 

We did not have checks on us and only enough cash for a very tiny pumpkin, so we just took pictures with them and left the pumpkins behind. 

You'd be surprised by how many people were actually there, just out of the shot.

Some college guys offered to take our picture if we took theirs. Sure!

They had Carson take several different shots with planned poses, even referencing the way people did it in the past, so perhaps there's tradition in this picture? 

We went grocery shopping after this and totally forgot to put pumpkins in our cart, but we do want to carve them (we still have a gingerbread kit from last Christmas in the back of the pantry though so the jury is out on whether this will happen). 

Even though it didn't feel at all like fall, it did feel like we were involved in something that's been a part of the community in Tally for a long time, and since I love traditions, that totally works for me. 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Fall?

I didn't think I'd see Fall colors in Florida, but it turns out that they exist! Now that it's December and we've had a few weeks of colder weather, we've begun to see leaves that change colors. It's nothing nearly as great as the colors in Washington or Ohio, but it is fun to see the pretty colors on the trees and to step over crunchy leaves.

On the day I took these pictures from our little back porch, it was also 79 degrees, so there's that. 

It's already started to get chilly again, but again, nothing like the last few winters. 

I'm liking Fall in December.

Fall Treats

Remember the pumpkin bread I've made before? I thought that it would be fun to make it into cupcakes instead. I used a spice cake mix, can of pumpkin, eggs and a little milk, hoping that the batter wasn't supposed to be different for cupcakes. I poured it into my mini muffin pan and set it in the oven for... I think 10 or 15 minutes, I'm not positive, but I checked to make sure it wasn't burning many times. 

I made a cream cheese frosting by googling "cream cheese frosting" and making the first one that came up (I knew the ingredients but wasn't sure of measurements). It was a very scientific process. I cut a corner in a ziploc bag and piped the frosting on my little muffins, put a little nutmeg and cinnamon on top and voila! They were delicious. 

I helped with a baby shower awhile back and intended to make little pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate... well, I ran out of time, Carson ate the white chocolate (I think white chocolate is disgusting, personally) and time passed and pretzel sticks weren't my top choice for snacks. So I made Halloween pretzel sticks for my coworkers. I melted the white chocolate in the microwave, then dipped the sticks. I used a spoon to help spread the chocolate and set them on a baking sheet to harden. I've seen some cute ghost ones with mouths and eyes, but all I had were tiny nonpareils, so they just have little eyes. I covered a few in Halloween sprinkles I had on hand, but the ghosts were cuter.
This was the easiest, laziest treat ever and I'll probably do it again... trying to think of cute Christmas ones!

 

Halloween 2013

Halloween isn't really one of my favorite holidays, but involves two of my favorite things: candy and costumes. I like dressing up more than candy, so when I can, I like to wear a costume on Halloween, just because it's fun. 

This year, Carson had to work, which was a bummer. I worked in the morning and we were allowed to wear costumes (yay!), but I was otherwise free that evening. I've never passed out candy before, so I really wanted to do that and so I invited some friends over to pass out candy and spend time together. These lovely ladies are all members of our community group, and it's always fun getting to see them outside that context. 

The night before Halloween, Carson helped out with my "real" costume. I wore a different one to work the next day because I didn't want to scatter glitter all over the place at work. 

He spent two hours creating the masterpiece you'll see later. 

At work, I was Ms. Frizzle from the kid's show The Magic School Bus. My costume wasn't the BEST representation of that, but people seemed to know who I was. My coworker Rebecca was a cat/fox.

Before my friends came over, I snapped a picture of Carson off to work. He had this blue jumpsuit on hand so we made him into an astronaut. I made the NASA badge out of cardboard and didn't have time to make the other patches before he had to dash off to his job. 

I mixed peanuts and candy corn for one of my favorite fall treats.

And made a toffee caramel dip that was simple and great with apples:
8oz softened cream cheese
3/4 C brown sugar
2 T vanilla
1/4 C Heath toffee bits

Mix all but Heath bits together, forth in ball, top with toffee bits and refrigerate until ready to serve!

And of course there was a huge bowl of candy. 

We had LOTS of trick-or-treaters! I was surprised by how many showed up, since it was actually rainy and windy that night. Trick-or-treating began at 6pm and went until 8, but we ran out of candy and had to close up shop a little early. 

Deanna, the 50's sockhopper, and me. 

 Probably didn't mention this, but Carson's delivering pizzas a few nights a week, so we ordered one and he delivered it to us.

 And here's our little party: Jen is a donut (a terrific last-minute costume, complete with halloween sprinkles), Deanna is a sockhopper (she even had the shoes), Malea is wearing her Guatemalan outfit, and I'm Tinkerbell.

 Our party got a little wild. We played Life, the board game.

 And Malea was the last to leave, staying to chat a few hours, until Carson got home.

All in all, a lovely Halloween. I'd wanted to have a party, and it turns out that last minute, very small gatherings are some of the best! 

Oh, and there is glitter EVERYWHERE. Fairy dust is actually a huge pain in real life.