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.

Springtime

It's spring! And it is BEAUTIFUL here this time of year! I think because I grew up in a place where the seasons weren't distinct, I'm especially taken aback every time the seasons change and we get to experience the colors of the fall leaves or the blooms in the spring. The weather has been pretty fickle - beautiful and sunny one moment, gloomy and rainy the next - and it's been fairly windy even on the days where the sun is bright and shining. Still, it's nice to see the green returning, wonderful to experience the days get longer (the sun is setting FIVE hours later than it was in December and I am so thankful for longer days), and the slowly blooming trees and flowers are great to see too. I'm always so impatient for summer, with consistent warm days and sunshine, but spring reminds me of new life and it has a certain freshness too. I'm embracing it!

This is in our backyard. And I must say I'm living in that navy H&M puffy vest. It's my favorite thing ever.

The Promenade.

Carson grilling outside our window. It was a breezy day, and the bushes protected him from the wind.

It's the Easter bunny! There are SO MANY rabbits in Münster! I'm sure whoever is in charge of public landscaping HATES them because there are bunny holes (burrows?) all over, and tons and tons of rabbits of all shapes and sizes. Since I don't have a lawn or vegetables and am not impacted by the rabbits at all, I just think they're cute.

Trying to enjoy a day without jackets in the sun, but the wind did its best to ruin that idea.

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!

Holden Arboretum

A few months ago, I bought a Groupon for the Holden Arboretum. A coworker recommended that we go there, so after a quick perusal of their website, I thought that it seemed very much like a place we'd like. 

I wanted to wait until the latest possible date, since I knew that meant the leaves would be glorious fall colors. We used the Groupon exactly three days before it expired, and I proved myself correct: it was glorious. You might have thought that two people had never seen leaves, the way we took pictures. 

When we got there, we discovered that it was a family Halloween event, with people in costumes everywhere. The event pricing was different from the regular pricing, but since we didn't go for the event and since we didn't have children with us, they let us in for just the Groupon (but not without a few embarrassing remarks from Carson...). 

When I got home, I discovered that we had taken nearly 300 pictures, which is indeed quite a feat. However many of them are multiples and can be deleted. Also, you can be thankful because I did not post all of them. 

Carson took most of these. He liked the bumble bee in the center of this picture.

And this bumble bee.

And I thought the scarecrows were fun. Look at the one on the broomstick on the bush in the background. It even has a pumpkin cat on the back!

And of course these hiking scarecrows were clever.

We weaved our way through crowds of people (we seriously felt strange there without kids) and found a trail to walk on.
I am proud of this picture, though truly I can only thank the leaves and I guess Carson's gene pool :) The colors are so great.

One day, I'll gather these foot pictures and do something with them.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil... Carson's idea.

I couldn't help it, some leaves came home with me and are drying in a book.

When he sees a fallen-down tree, Carson cannot help himself.

We went to an observation deck thing and Carson enjoyed finding all the varieties in the pamphlet. His vision isn't the best, so I enjoyed reading the signs aloud to him and then taking pictures through the leaves.

There was a tree with initials carved in it, but Carson didn't bring a knife so he carved our initials into a wet handrail with a stick. This doesn't say anything about the duration of our relationship :)

I love the light coming down through the leaves.

A black squirrel. Carson pointed out that they look more like rodents than the regular gray ones and I had to agree.

At about this point, it began to drizzle just a bit. The leaves protected us and I barely felt a raindrop.

My hair proved to be a decent autumn color. I think it's funny that I have a blond streak there on the bottom.

Our next stop was at the wildflower garden and there were some really unique varieties next to familiar plants.

These little babies are so sweet.

Carson found "the perfect" walking stick, which I didn't let him keep. I tried to get him to take a picture with it though, for memories' sake. He wouldn't, so I did.

Visit and we'll take a trip out here! (that was a blatent hint to some of you) I don't think we got to see most of the arboretum and we walked around for several hours. I hope to go back in the spring - it must be an entirely different looking place!