Christmas Tree: 8, Trish: 1

Since I grew up in Michigan, land of the Christmas  tree farms, I'm a real Christmas tree kind of girl.  Now I will agree that there's a time and a place for fake trees...but my home will never be the place.  I love the way they look, the way they smell...and I don't have room to store a fake tree.  I haven't had a Christmas tree in three years because I always end up traveling for a full month between mid-December and mid-January, so I decided that this is the perfect year to bring my first Christmas tree into my first real home.  Part of the whole Christmas tree experience for me is bundling up and going out in the snow to pick one out, so I headed over to the Boy Scout tree lot on a cold, snowy evening playing Christmas carols on the radio the whole two miles.  When I got there the boys kept exclaiming about how they didn't understand why anyone would buy a Christmas tree on such a cold night, but I just smiled and told them that it was part of the total experience.  They helped me find a beautiful scotch pine (the kind my family always had) with a straight trunk and I wrote them a check.

Then it was time to load the tree onto my (new) car.  I wasn't about to let them cram it in the trunk (bad for the tree AND the car), so I explained that I'd like it tied on top.  They weren't too keen on the idea, but I expressed my confidence in their abilities, produced a blanket to keep the tree from scratching the top of my car, and they set to work.  Now when I think of Boy Scouts I think of two things: camping and tying knots.  So imagine my reaction when a scout took a piece of twine, tied it to the handle inside the back seat of the car, wrapped the twine loosely around the top nub of the tree, and loosely tied the other end to the handle inside the back seat on the other side and pronounced it perfect.  Thankfully their scout leader was a little more concerned about my getting out of the parking lot with the tree still on top of the car, and he spent the next fifteen minutes wrapping twine around the tree and tying it down securely.  I thanked him profusely, then walked around to the front of the car to discover that my entire windshield was covered by the bottom branches of the tree.  "Um, excuse me?  I'm really sorry--I hate to be picky...but I think I'll get pulled over if I try to drive home like this.  I won't be able to see out.  I only live two miles away, but...can we move it back a little bit?"  He agreed completely and seemed a little embarrassed at this oversight as he moved the tree back and re-secured it.


I got the tree home, cut the twine, and unloaded it from the top of my car with no trouble.  My friend Julia and her puppy Zoey (in a festive ugly Christmas sweater) met me in the parking lot to help carry it in and put it in a stand, because while I'm a pretty self-sufficient single girl, putting a Christmas tree in a stand is simply a two-person job.  I had already moved the furniture so we carried it right in, plopped it in the stand, and I spent the next three hours lying on the floor under the tree trying to screw it in while Julia held it upright.  Mid-way through the (incredibly frustrating) process Julia discovered that she had a rash growing up her arms, so we took a break and she scrubbed her arms up to the elbows, then covered them in hydrocortisone cream.  So apparently Julia is allergic to pine, which was news to both of us.  But bless her heart, she donned a fleece and a pair of gloves (with the fleece tucked into them) and powered on.  After three hours we had a wobbly and crooked but more or less upright tree.  It was 11 p.m., so she went home and since I wasn't convinced it was going to stay standing I opted not to decorate it quite yet.  I did take a quick photo for proof that it was standing, though.

The next morning when I woke up and wandered down the hall I discovered that my tree had indeed fallen over.  Over the course of the next week three more people came over to help and no one was able to get the tree standing.  Just as I was about to give up on Christmas entirely and chuck the tree off the balcony my next door neighbor showed up with a hacksaw and a huge pair of clippers.  (We like the image of him standing in the elevator holding these tools and wearing a pea coat.  Not creepy at all.)  He sawed off the bottom layer of branches, the tree sunk a couple of inches further into the stand, and in ten minutes' time he had the tree standing firmly on its own!  I popped dinner in the oven for both of us (since the least I could do to thank him was feed him) and we decorated the tree while it baked.  I couldn't believe that after eight days of having a heap of pine tree in the middle of my living room someone was able to transform it into a Christmas tree in just ten minutes!  It turned out beautifully, and now I almost never turn the lights off.  After nearly not having a tree at all I want to soak up every minute I can enjoying it!

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

As soon as I got home from Thanksgiving I started getting into the Christmas spirit.  I started decorating, baking, and putting off writing cards.  The first thing I did was put up my nativity, which I absolutely adore.  My mom started giving me pieces of the set for Christmas two years ago and I get really excited to set it up each year.  Beautiful, no?

The next thing I did was get the tree, but that story is going to get a post of its own, so for now just know that I got the tree.  Up next: baking!  I've always wanted to do a cookie exchange and this year I was invited to participate in two!  I ended up bailing on the second one because the first required that each person bake 15 dozen cookies.  (Yes, 15.  Originally it was 18, so we were pleased when it was "only" 15!)  My friend Julia and I agreed that we neither wanted to bake 15 dozen cookies nor have 15 dozen cookies in the house, so we went halvsies.  We each made seven and a half dozen and we bagged 6 of her cookies with 6 of my cookies.  Since Julia has a Kitchen-Aid counter-top mixer she was kind enough to host a day of baking, thereby saving me a lot of time and effort at home.  Julia made cherry chocolate chip cookies and I made oatmeal scotchies.  Yum!  I didn't get any photos at the exchange, but imagine a pool table completely covered in heaps of cookies.  That should give you a pretty good idea of what it looked like.

I finally quit procrastinating on the Christmas cards a couple of days ago and I'm nearly finished with them.  I think I've got about 30 more to write and I'll be done.  Cards are always a huge task because I like to do something creative and this year I ended up making my cards by hand.  On top of that, I'm currently without a working printer so whereas I usually print address and return address labels, I had to address every card by hand.  I send out about 100 cards and I write a note to each person by hand, so it's an incredibly time-consuming task.  The good news here is that all of my cards are made, they're all addressed (and return addressed!), and I'm about 2/3 of the way through writing them.  My goal is to have them all in the mail by Monday and I think I'm going to make it!


Through no small miracle I finished my holiday shopping a couple of days ago.  This has never happened before.  Every year I drive to Chicago a day or two before Christmas and spend Christmas Eve running out to pick up last-minute gifts and then lock myself in a room with my mom's rolls of wrapping paper until two in the morning.  I wonder what she'll do when I show up two days before Christmas with all the gifts purchased and wrapped?!  Tonight I wrapped and packaged everything that has to be shipped out, which was a bigger task than I had anticipated.  I loaded all of the packages into my trunk already so that tomorrow I can just waltz down to the garage and head to the post office without having to think about hauling everything downstairs.  What a relief to have that project taken care of!  Now all that's left to do is wrap gifts for my family this weekend.  This may turn out to be my most organized Christmas ever!

Where does the time go?

Alright, so it's officially been a month since I blogged, and I apologize for that.  I keep putting it on my To Do List and life keeps getting in the way.  Other things take priority and I just never quite get to it.  So now I'm back-logged.  Or back-blogged, as it were.  So, back we go in time aaaalll the way to Thanksgiving.


My friend Jaime was celebrating a birthday that could be divided by 11 on November 24th, so I went to Naperville, IL and met her for a celebratory sushi dinner and martinis before heading to Jan and Ron's:

I wasn't sure how well a cake would travel seven hours by car, so I made her this pan of pink frosted brownies with sprinkles instead:

We slumber-partied that night and spent the following morning drinking coffee (once I received confirmation via text--straight to my bed--that it was ready) and watching something on the Travel Channel about fried food that made me swear I'd never eat anything fried again.  It was disgusting.  Fortunately Jaime also introduced me to the brilliance of Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel.  The host lost to a 6 lb. burrito, which was all the inspiration we needed to head to a local burrito joint for lunch.


I know what you're thinking:  What about Bella?  Well don't you worry--Auntie Trish had a little photo session with her festive friend, and to kick off the Thanksgiving holiday I got to see this:

You're welcome.


Wednesday afternoon Jaime and I fought the Day-Before-Thanksgiving-Chicago-Traffic out to Jan and Ron's, where we made pies.  It took us about three hours to get them in the oven, but that's because we were making the crusts from scratch.  Or it's because of this:

One or the other for sure.  (Thanks, Ron, for the fabulous margaritas!!  You're already hired for next year!)  We took photos so you could see the finished products.  This is Jaime's pie:

And these are my pies:

Now I don't eat pie (I know, it's totally un-American, but it's true.  I hate pie.), but no one else seemed to have any trouble eating it, so I guess they turned out alright!  We're hoping to make the pie-baking (and margarita-drinking) a new day-before-Thanksgiving tradition.


The rest of the weekend came and went quickly and I was a bit of a delinquent with my camera.  I'm sad to report that the annual Rockettes kickline did not take place in the new kitchen Thursday morning because I was so busy making the stuffing that I forgot all about the parade until about 10:30.  (I think I'm getting senile!  Who forgets the parade?!)  Dinner was delicious, and of course the company was great too.  We had my aunt and uncle from Michigan and Ron's son Tyler and his fiance Debbie as well.  For about an hour after dinner the house looked like this:

...but after a little nap Family Game Night commenced!  I can't remember who won at Balderdash, so it was probably me.  The following night we played Pit, which we haven't played in years but is definitely a favorite in my family.  Ron and I lost miserably, but got a good laugh the next morning when our waitress at breakfast delivered The Bear (the equivalent of the Old Maid) to my uncle with his eggs!


It was sad to leave after such a fun weekend, but it helped knowing that I'd be back in just a few weeks to celebrate Christmas.  And, needless to say, there would be plenty to keep me busy when I got home!

Baked Falafel: A Culinary Victory!

I had forgotten how much I like falafel until I had it at the Pita Pit in Bloomington, IN in May.  Since then I've been looking for Pita Pits everywhere I go.  It wasn't until a couple of months ago that I realized that if I learned to make falafel myself I could have it whenever I wanted!  I recently discovered that Costco carries some pretty fantastic tzatziki (second only to that at It's Greek To Me in Hoboken, NJ) and that was all the motivation I needed to try my hand at making falafel.  Now I've seen boxes of falafel mix at the grocery store, but where's the fun in that?  I much preferred the idea of using fresh chickpeas (Okay, so they're canned, but when compared to a powdered mix in a box they're fresh!) and having a little adventure in the kitchen.  I went in search of recipes and found plenty, but quickly discovered that falafel is traditionally fried.  (No wonder it's so good!)  I'm not about to start frying foods at home--that's a slippery slope and best left as a treat when eating out!  So, I went in search of a baked falafel recipe.  And guess what?  I found one!  I discovered that it had to bake about twice as long as the recipe indicated, but it turned out great--this falafel is delicious!  Here's the recipe (I hope this isn't plagiarism!  I don't know who this recipe actually belongs to, but all the credit goes to them!):


Ingredients:

1 15-19 oz can chickpeas, drained
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoons of fresh parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil


Preparation:

Drizzle olive oil evenly in shallow baking dish. Preheat oven to 350.  While oven is preheating, mash chickpeas with mortar and pestle or in food processor. Add onions and garlic and blend.  Add remaining ingredients to make a thick paste-like consistency.  Shape into ping pong size balls and place in preheated baking dish. Bake for about 45 minutes, turning halfway through cooking.  (45 minutes is the adjusted time!)

I mashed everything together with my mortar and pestle, then baked it in a glass dish.  It almost made 16 falafel, but I was too lazy to take a little bit off each one to make a 16th.  When it was done baking I put four falafel in a whole wheat pita with 2 tablespoons of tzatziki and sliced cucumber, tomatoes, and a little red onion.  If I hadn't discovered that my fat-free feta had gone bad while I was away I might have added an ounce of that as well.


I can't say enough good things about this recipe.  It's quick, it's healthy, and it's delicious!  I'll definitely be adding this to my regular meal rotation!  Yum!

Soup's On!

So I decided that one thing I want to do more of in my unemployment is cook.  I discovered a couple of years ago that I really enjoy cooking, but since I moved to Minnesota I've been working such long hours and traveling so much that I haven't spent much time in the kitchen.  While I do believe frozen meals have a purpose, I had gotten to the point that dinner was whatever was on the top of the stack in the freezer.  Now that I have some time on my hands I want to try some new recipes and get a little more creative in the dinner department.


Last winter my friend Julia made Armenian Wonton Soup and brought it over to my place.  It was amazing.  She explained that she makes a bunch of wontons and freezes them so they're ready whenever she wants to have the soup.  I understood that a little labor now means ready-to-eat soup all winter long, so I decided I was up for the challenge and asked for the recipe.

I've been thinking about the soup a lot lately, so when I went to the grocery store on Friday I decided to pick up some wonton wrappers and try my hand at this new recipe that night.  I was feeling domestic so I thought I'd spend my evening making Armenian Wonton Soup, banana muffins, and maybe a loaf of bread for sandwiches.  After more than three hours (and some serious back pain) I had made less than 1/3 of a recipe of wontons.  Fortunately I was only planning to make 1/3 of the recipe, but when the second pan full of wontons went into the oven I made five small meatballs out of the remaining meat mixture, threw them in a pan, and into the oven they went!

I found out yesterday that I was wrapping them all wrong, which is probably why it took me so long.  Apparently it usually takes Julia about 3 hours to do a full recipe's worth.  I think it's going to be awhile before I tackle making them again (My back needs to recover, after all.), but the soup turned out SO good that I'm pretty sure they're worth the pain.  Hopefully it will just go a little faster next time since Julia showed me the correct way to wrap the wontons.  For now I should have enough wontons to last me a couple of months, but I'm going to be stingy with them to make them last as long as possible!


Thanks Julia, for sharing your recipe!  And the secret of proper wonton wrapping!

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

That's code in my family for "I made it home safely."  Whenever we're traveling we let each other know and it's sort of an unwritten rule that if you don't call you send a "jiggety jig" email or text when you're home.  So now you all know that I'm home safe and sound after what Jaime has dubbed Trishapalooza.  Here's how the rest of the trip went:


I had only planned to stay with Jan and Ron for five days, but I was still pretty sick on day five so I ended up staying a couple of extra days.  It was great to spend a little extra time with them, but as a result I had to cancel my trip to Grand Rapids to see my cousin Megan.  Instead I got myself back on schedule and bypassed Grand Rapids, heading straight to Mt. Pleasant to spend a couple of days with my brother and his family.  I was feeling much better but still didn't have a lot of energy, so we sort of laid low while I was there.  I coordinated my trip so that I'd be there on my brother's day off (a rare thing!) and it was great just hanging out with him, even though we didn't do too much.  I got to see his basement renovation project, we shared our latest photos, and he cooked a couple of really awesome dinners.  I also made a new best friend while I was there:

Seriously.  Why ya so obsessed wit' me?

This is my brother's in-laws' dog, Monroe.  He's a Daisy Dog, and yeah...I pretty much adore him!

My brother and me

And since I didn't like the first one we took another.  This one is obviously much better.

From Mt. Pleasant I headed to Fort Wayne to spend some time with Beth (AKA Quinn).  Our friend Kathryn just moved to Angola (north of Fort Wayne) for a new job and bought a beautiful new house so we met up with her for a tour and lunch at a local Mexican restaurant on my way into town:

Mmm mmm my sisters!

(Beth, Kathryn, Trish)

The weekend went so fast that I couldn't really tell you what all we did.  I know there was a Halloween party, time with the Quinn Clan, margaritas and Mexican food with Sara, some Super Mario Brothers 3 (I dominated the free lives!), wine, a lesson for Quinn in the wonders of iGoogle, cards with Sara, and a trip to DeBrand's, just to name a few highlights.  It was great just to spend some quality time with Quinn, though.  (Love you, Quinn!  Thanks for the late night chat, especially!)

This is what happens when three girls split two pitchers of margaritas.  We call Ben (Beth's hubby) to pick us up.  And he finds us crashed in The World's Comfiest Bed (Sara's).

(Trish, Ben, Quinn/Beth, Sara)

My caramel truffle.  To die for.

My last stop was just a quick overnight in Woodridge, IL (outside of Chicago) to visit my friend Jaime and meet my new neice-puppy, Bella:

Please note the underbite.  This little grin just cracks me up!

Unfortunately I failed to take any photos of or with Jaime (I know, I know...), but her boyfriend was wonderful and made us dinner, and later she made us popcorn on the stove so we'd have a snack while we watched the most terrifying television show I've ever seen.  (It was a total bonding experience.)  As always, J-Halt was a wonderful hostess and I'm excited to spend more time with her in a couple of weeks!

So, after my quick overnight at Jaime's I headed home.  It was great to see everyone, but I have to admit that I'm pretty happy to be home.  I'm ready to get back into a routine, and I'm excited to start preparing for the holidays.  I've done the grocery shopping and I've got the pumpkin spice and creamy caramel fragrance oils (mixed together) burning in the jack-o-lantern oil warmer so I'm settling back in for a couple of weeks.

Until Thanksgiving I'm home again, home again, jiggety jig!

To Make A House A Home

My mom has always said that when she moves to a new house it doesn't feel like a home until she's baked chocolate chip cookies there.  I adopted this theory when I moved to St. Louis in February of 2006.  However, I didn't realize that I didn't have a spatula to take the cookies off the baking sheet until the first batch came out of the oven.  *Ring, ring*  "Mom?  How would you get cookies off a baking sheet if you didn't have a spatula?"  I got by that night, but I sure did head straight to Target the next day to buy a spatula.  When I moved to Minneapolis in 2007 and bought my condo I was especially excited to make the first batch of chocolate chip cookies.  After all, I'd bought this place.  It was really and truly Home for me--the first place I could truly call Home since I was a senior in high school, back in 1999.  So, you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that along with dropping my (almost brand new) TV and scratching up my coffee table the movers had broken my only spatula.  After another run to Target, I was finally able to make the cookies, and my condo became my Home!


Now I tell you all of this because my mom and Ron just moved into a new house, and I came down to Chicago to help them unpack and settle in.  Naturally, the chocolate chip cookies came up, and we started talking about when we'd get to make them.  But after only two days in the new house I started getting a little chest congestion, followed quickly by plugged up ears and finally full-blown sinus congestion and an inner ear infection.  Every day for the next three days when I woke up I felt worse than the day before, until I finally started feeling a little bit better today.  Every few hours I have a couple of minutes that I can actually breathe through my nose, and I can now go a couple of hours at a time without a major coughing fit.  But what I've realized through all of this is that maybe the chocolate chip cookies aren't the only thing that can make a house a home.  Jan and Ron have made me feel so welcome in their new home and have taken wonderful care of me, providing cough syrup, box after box of tissues, hot tea, a cozy bed with no wake-up calls, and even directions to the walk-in clinic so I could get some antibiotics.  I hope that Jan and Ron will still make that first batch of cookies together, but  as far as I'm concerned their love and care have already made this house a home.

Missers Gets Hitched

So it's official:  Missy and Sean (finally!) tied the knot!  Don't worry, I'm allowed to say "finally," because I've been along for the whole journey.  All of it.  Since they got together in 2002.  And I've actually known Sean almost as long as I've known Missy.  Missy and I met on our first day of college, and I met Sean just a couple of months later, because they were friends throughout high school and he came to visit her at DePauw.  There are no words to express how happy I am that these two FINALLY got their "happily ever after."  They're two of the kindest-hearted, generous, supportive, fun-loving friends a girl could ask for.  When they asked me to be a part of their wedding day I couldn't say yes fast enough...even if Missy DIDN'T go for my idea of choosing bridesmaid dresses in a color I already had hanging in my closet!

So last Thursday (a little over a week ago) I packed my bags and drove to St. Louis for the wedding festivities.  It's a 10-hour drive and I had a few things I had to take care of at home before I could leave, so I didn't get in until about 12:30, but since I had just been there for her bridal shower three weeks before we could skip the house tour and get right down to the important stuff--namely me seeing their new Nintendo Wii and their Mii's and creating a Mii that looked exactly like me.  (Side note: Does anyone actually choose the head that looks like a piece of toast??)  Anyways, we were up until about 3:30 a.m. doing important things like that, and then we finally crashed.

Friday was a busy day, but we checked a lot of items off of Missy's To Do List.  Besides running errands for things like ringbearer gifts and pantyhose, finishing decorating the reception hall, and getting nails done, Missy took her mom, sister, niece, and me out to lunch at this great tearoom in Godfrey called Josephine's.  Lunch was delicious, but more importantly it was the first event of the weekend honoring Missy and her nuptials!  Oh, and she got her photo taken with some guys in some pretty spectacular hats while we were there, too.


Friday night was the rehearsal, which went exceptionally well.  The priest was a perfectionist and didn't love the YouTube spoof my walking partner and I tried out on our way down the aisle, so we weren't allowed to go to the rehearsal dinner until we'd all walked silently down the aisle as if it were the real thing.  The dinner was delicious, and Friday night Missy and I slumber-partied with her family at her parents' house.  I was really touched that she asked me to stay with them.

Saturday morning we were up early to get hair and make-up done.  Missy's wonderful friend Sarah came to the house to do Missy's make-up, then followed us to the salon and did the bridesmaids' make-up as we finished up with hair.  After a quick trip home for some photos and some sloppy joe's courtesy of Sharon (Missy's mom) we were headed to the church!


Aside from a Snow White incident where a bird got into our dressing room and Missy caught it and released it back into the wild, everything went wonderfully.  Missy looked absolutely gorgeous in her dress, and Sean looked very handsome.  The ceremony was beautiful, and when it was over we packed up our things and boarded the bridal party bus and headed out around town to take photos (which we can't wait to see!).  Highlights of the bus included figuring out how to open a beer without a bottle opener, Missy re-applying deodorant in her bridal gown and stopping to pose for a photo, photos at the ampitheatre where Sean proposed, photos at Robert Wadlow's (the world's tallest man's) chair, and discovering a hearse advertising ghost tours in front of the reception site.


The reception was fantastic.  It was so much fun to see so many old friends, and the dance floor was hoppin' all night long.  The Delta Gamma's toasted Missy and Sean, and when Sean played a special Delta Gama song for us I pulled him onto the dance floor to breakdance in the middle of our circle.  At the end of the night Joe (Missy's dad) got on the dance floor and sang "My Way" (No, not the song by Usher.  The song by Frank Sinatra.), which was beautiful.

After the reception the DG's did what anyone would do after a wedding reception: We went to a drag show.  It was the first for many of us, and it was a great time, though we were surprised to find out that there were only three or four drag queens there.  One of the queens was especially fond of Becky, and Jeff (Lily's hubby) eventually had to move into a corner of the room, not because the drag queens were hitting on him, but because other patrons couldn't seem to keep their hands off.


Overall the weekend was a huge success.  Missy and Sean are happily married, and everyone had a wonderful time.  It's hard to believe that they're actually married now, but I went ahead and changed her name in my phone so I can start getting used to her new last name.  Lots of love to Missy and Sean, and thanks for an incredibly fun weekend!

Top 10 Reasons I Know I'm Minnesotan Now

10. I no longer make casseroles.  I make "hot dishes."  I correct people who say "casserole" and my entire family has now taken to saying "hot dish" in honor of my new home.
9. Friends are starting to call me out on my accent.  And not just when I say "Minn-e-soooo-ta."  Gone are the days when I'm called out for saying "caw-fee."
8. Until the temperatures reach negative numbers I'll be running errands in a down vest.  It's just a little chilly.  I'll wear a winter coat when it gets cold out.
7. I say "spendy" instead of "expensive" and I don't even realize it.
6. I own a dozen scarves but not a single pair of shorts.  And I think I need more scarves.
5. I have a recipe for tater tot hot dish.  I make it.  And I love it.  I even gave it to a friend at her bridal shower recently and it wasn't as a joke.  I really thought she needed to have the recipe.
4. I attended a wedding where the guests were asked to respond to the officiant with a "You betcha!"
3. It's 48 degrees and I have every window and sliding door in my condo open.  You know, to cool the place down a little.
2. I gave up my Chicago phone number of 6 years and got a local number.  (Don't forget to update your phone accordingly!)
1. I have a Minnesota driver's license!  I finally went to the DMV today, and I'm proud to report that I passed my written test with flying colors (despite the fact that I apparently don't know how fast tractors go.  I'm not too upset about that.).  So yeah, it's official.  I'm Minnesotan now!

Zoey's Field Trip

Before Julia and Jon left for their honeymoon I promised Zoey a field trip.  She did really well in the car when I brought her to my condo on Friday, so on Saturday I thought she was ready for a major outing.  It had been raining for days and we even had snow here last week, so since it was sunny and mid-50's I thought we'd do something Fall-ish and festive.  We went to the pumpkin patch!

Now Zoey and Auntie Trish didn't keep all the fun to ourselves.  Auntie Kristin came too!  Zoey was SO excited to see Kristin Saturday afternoon, and she loved sitting in Kristin's lap (all harnessed in for safety, of course!) all the way to the pumpkin patch.  When we got there we let her run between the rows of pumpkins, but she kept getting distracted by apples that had falled off the trees.  Apples are one of her favorite snacks (along with carrots and obviously doggie treats), but we hadn't thought about that little distraction!  She was incredibly patient with us as we paraded her around, made her pose for photos, and kept her from enjoying a tasty apple snack.  The kids in the patch loved her too, and she even let one little girl pet her.  It might have been because she was holding an apple, though...

Once we finished Zoey's photo shoot Kristin got Zoey an apple sample while I took some family photos for a woman who ohsodiscretely said, "I really want to get someone to take a family photo for us by those hay bales over there."  "Um...would you like me to take a family photo for you by those hay bales over there?"  So after I'd taken a Christmas-card-worthy family photo and narrowly escaped a dead camera battery our Fall adventure came to an end.

When we got back to the house Kristin and I watched a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother (including one of my favorite episodes--"Swarley") while the Zomonster sacked out on the couch and recovered from her exciting day.  Julia and Jon came home on Sunday so my Zoey duties are over for now.  Several times today I've caught myself looking around for her when it's too quiet.  I'm so glad that I got to watch her while they were gone.  It definitely fueled my I-Want-A-Puppy fire, but I know that now's not the right time, so in case you're wondering--no, I'm not getting a dog.  At least not quite yet...