Fall Festival

Last Monday we went to the Fall Festival at Cox Farms, one of our favorites. Amelia gets out of school early on Mondays and Ben took the afternoon off so we could all go together. It was such a beautiful afternoon.




Enjoying the free apples and cider.
















Inside the crazy corn maze.








The goat village was a definite favorite.






They have a great hayride that takes you past lots of crazy things.
















Elsa did a great job hanging on to the rope swing...she refused to let go and just ended up right back on the platform.

The weekend.

This past weekend we finally had time to get started on painting the nursery and getting some yard work done. I say we, but it was mostly Ben.

While we were working, Amelia and Elsa enjoyed spending the day in the yard and watching movies.

Amelia kept asking me for some tape and I later found this sign she had made, which was posted near a big pile of slugs:

(I think she confused the "RIP" seen on Halloween headstones with "keep off.")

Elsa started hollering at some point and we found her with her head stuck between the slats on our front porch:



(Clearly one of our Saturday projects needs to be a complete renovation of our dilapidated porch.)

I love it when I find the girls reading together:


This is where Ben spent much of his time:

(I tried to do some painting, but a pregnant belly was hard to maneuver in that tiny space. Before and after photos will be coming. When I finally figure out what I'm doing in there.)

And a sunset stroll through Huntley Meadows on Sunday evening:

Belle and Sebastian

Ben and I went to the Belle and Sebastian concert at DAR Constitution Hall in DC last week. It was fantastic. I have been wanting to see them since about 1997 so I was glad it finally happened. They played a really fun live show with lots of interaction with the audience. Stuart Murdoch was entertaining to watch and you couldn't help but smile and tap your foot. We had excellent seats close to the front. A highlight was watching Stuart walk through the audience and hand out autographed footballs to young kids (noting that many original fans now have children of their own that they brought along). He climbed into the balcony and walked along the front railing which sent all of the security guards into a frenzy. Quite amusing.




Dance party on stage...audience members were invited to come up and dance.

Costume Fail

We have some gnomes floating around our yard and Elsa loves to play with them. I found this gnome costume and had to give it a try. Elsa was excited to put it on, but wasn't too keen on the hat and beard. And without the hat and beard, she was pretty much a lumberjack with elf shoes. So I returned the costume and she now has a witch costume and Amelia's old elephant costume to choose from. But of course she has now started saying she wants to be a gnome. We'll see what happens on Halloween...

Fall at River Farm

Elsa and I headed to one of our favorite spots earlier in the week, River Farm Garden Park on the Potomac. There were so many beautiful Fall things happening there and Elsa had so much fun running free for a few hours.








(Elsa was somewhere inside this maze.)

Fall Accessorizing

We stocked up some Fall essentials...boots, hats, and scarves. Amelia loves wearing hats and apparently loves scarves too. Since I don't fit into anything these days and can't justify spending money on clothes, scarves seemed like a good choice. You can't have too many, right?








(Elsa had to get in on the action.)

A chilly weekend.

This weekend was such a difference from the awful heat of last weekend. It was fantastic. October definitely brought lovely Autumn weather. We spent a very enjoyable Friday evening hanging out with our friends Hannah and Rob and checking out their new place. I'm so jealous of their fantastic location in the Capitol Hill/Eastern Market area. We went out to dinner at the famed Good Stuff and enjoyed yummy burgers and shakes. Then Hannah and Rob took us on a lovely walking tour of the area.



Ben had to work quite a bit this weekend, but we did manage to have a lovely picnic at the National Arboretum. There were definitely some signs of fall...














(Amelia spotted a frog.)





(And if you caught the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference this weekend, you might have seen a photo of my adorable new nephew "Genghis" Gong...descendant of First Dragon Gong.)