The Fall, September & October

I fell in love with fall with Kyle :) First of all, it didn't officially get cold until late December so we enjoyed the changing of the leaves and harvest time! First off, we went down to an apple orchard over general conference weekend. I had never picked apples like that before and it was so much fun!

The tool I'm holding is basically a pole with a sack and claws to pull the apple down from the tree - Love it.

 Going to an apple orchard and hand picking our own apples means finding what to bake them into...In the end, we did pretty well, making apple cider, apple dumplings, two apple pies, apple spice cake, caramel apple cinnamon rolls and these brown sugar apple biscuits that baked into the shape of a heart :)

So hard to stay away from these.

We took a day trip down to Charlottesville, NC to see BYU play (still struggling with school identity crisis, but I think I may feel the Cougar blood coming back in, with the husband's liking...plus, all of our kids will probably wear BYU logos). We got stuck in a huge rain storm and the game actually quit for a while because of lightning warnings. 

Love this boy. Loved the crepes we had just scarfed down too. 

We went to the 'Taste of DC', with over 60 different restaurants located around Washington D.C. to try. Kyle, with his love of root beer, had found these guys online and heard they would be selling at the venue. This is a root beer with a minor maple flavoring. Yum.

Vendors lining Pennsylvania Avenue (the capitol is right behind us)

During my internship, from October 1 to 16, we had a government shutdown (long story short, congress failed to enact legislation money for fiscal year 2014....yep) So I got a two week paid vacation! It was nice until I started getting bored :( Luckily, the grandparents flew out to Maryland for a painting conference and took a trip up to Gettysburg where I met up with them. Here we are at the spot where the address was delivered. 

At the end of October, we took a trip down to Raleigh, NC to visit some good friends and attend the infamous (for food mainly) North Carolina state fair - this was the best corn I've ever tasted because of the pound and a half of parmesan cheese loaded on there.

The original ham biscuit being wolfed down by the original ham (ha ha can't help myself sometimes). 

It was FREEZING at night so we luckily found this cute fire pit and warmed ourselves on hot apple cider and death apple dumpling pictured below. 

Seriously, could not wait for it to cool before we bit into this beast. 

I love Kyle.

Trying to keep warm while taking a tour through a Christmas lit garden

Kyle winning me a stuffed cheetah twice as big as my head that still owns a place in our car.

The next morning it was a bit warmer, thank goodness, and we went to the Raleigh Farmer's Market and had an amazing breakfast where Kyle showed off some skilzzzz with the bean bag toss (look at that form and height on the black bag!)

Afterwards, we went to a corn maze area with this rope maze in the middle. It looks really easy. Ya, it's not. We were in there probably a good 20 minutes, refusing to jump over any ropes. 

Here is the winner in the middle (final destination) of the corn maze. We laughed as we just climbed over the ropes to get out after all that time finding our way in. 

I DOMINATED at pumpkin checkers. Kyle's white pumpkins are retreating at the sight of my army. 

On a hay ride around the property. 

Kyle bravely leading us through the corn maze...by this point, we were a little hungry and too tired to finish....plus we had just finished the rope maze so we justified. 

Picking out our pumpkins. 

Beautiful fall day in the pumpkin patch - We love fall! 

Side Note - Thankfully, Kyle grew up watching Ichabod Crane as much as I did so we probably watched this movie at least six times up until Halloween...just a good (and slightly terrifying for Disney) fall movie. 

Kyle's wonderful mom, sisters and I made a trip to TaiPan before we moved out to Virginia...this is where I got this fun banner and the pumpkin dish that was filled with candy way too much :)

Kyle's family (or mainly he and his sister) would make these light covers every year and I loved it! So many traditions we will carry on with. Kyle rocked the bat, wolf and ghost, while I had a hard time making the pumpkin and frank :( poor guy has a giant left eye to fit over a plug outlet. And Kyle is handsome.

Happy Halloween! I'm sure it's hard to tell who carved what pumpkin!