Fall Happenings

It has been such a fun fall so far. Over my birthday weekend, my good friend Brooke came to visit from Boise. It was so great to have her here. We were able to pack a lot into the weekend. On Friday we fit in some quality shopping time and went to University City in downtown Philadelphia on a double date with one of Jeremy's friends. On Saturday, we woke up bright and early and took the train to New York City. Our first stop was the half price Broadway ticket booth in Times Square. A little known perk of being pregnant in New York City is that you get to go to the very front of the line! After we got our tickets, we took the ferry past the statue of liberty to Ellis Island.

 

 

It seems like whenever we visit, we never have quite enough time there. I think it is such a fascinating place. After Ellis Island, we hurried back up to Broadway to see Spiderman. We told the man in the ticket booth to give us the best seats he had, but we didn't ask him what those were. When we got to the theater (with 2 minutes to spare) we found out that our seats were front row center. It was a little bit difficult to see during a couple of times during the show, but mostly it was pretty cool. The cast members interact with you a lot when you are that close. Spiderman swung from the ceiling and landed pretty much on top of us and made me and Brooke jump. Brooke also got spit on by Spiderman :)

 

 

After the show, we went to Max Brenner's for dinner. They have a regular menu, but they also have an additional menu devoted entirely to chocolate. Jeremy and I shared the fondue. It was amazing! It was an excellent birthday!

Last weekend, my friend Kelsey put on a a shower for me. She did such a great job. It was a "shower" theme. She made cute crepe paper pom pom rain clouds and rain cloud cupcakes

 

These are chocolate covered marshmallow "baby rattles." So cute!

This is the gorgeous quilt that Kelsey made. It is so soft! I love it!

 

We got a lot of really nice things from the ladies in our ward. We feel really blessed to have such good friends. It is crazy to think that the baby is due next month! Pictures of the finished nursery soon to follow!

Babymoon to Vermont

Last weekend, Jeremy and I went on our "babymoon" to Woodstock, Vermont. It's crazy to think that the baby will be here in just about 2 months! We had such a good time. I would love to live in Vermont, just so that I could be there for the fall every year! We stayed at the Maple Leaf Inn.

 

 

It was the cutest place. The breakfasts each morning were incredible, and the Innkeepers made fresh chocolate chip cookies each afternoon. Our room had a real wood burning fireplace, which was really fun to use at night when it got down to the 30s outside. On our first day, we took a little drive north to Stowe, Vermont. We went to the Ben and Jerry's factory and took a tour. They have a "flavor graveyard" of a bunch of the discontinued flavors.

 It was pretty easy to see why most of them didn't last long. We also stopped at Cabot Cheese, Lake Champlain Chocolates and Cold Hollow Cider Mill. I guess this stretch of highway is known as "enticement alley" just because there are so many yummy places to stop. Cold Hollow Cider Mill was a really fun place. It was really neat to watch them press the apples. I do love my cider!

 

That afternoon we walked around downtown Stowe and looked in some shops. After that, we drove around Mt. Mansfield. The drive was gorgeous. The weather could have been better, but we still saw some really pretty foliage.On the other side of Mt. Mansfield, we visited our friends, the Bigelows. We went on a little hike with them and they made us a delicious dinner!

 

On Saturday, we went to Sugarbush maple farm, another place with lots of yummy samples. They let you taste all the different grades of maple syrup: from Grade A, which is really light and mild tasting, all the way to dark amber, which is pretty dark and has the strongest maple flavor. When we walked into the tasting room, a black man turned to us and said "Nice to meet you...I'm dark amber." I guess that makes me and Jeremy Karo Syrup :). It was really fun to walk around the farm and learn how maple syrup is made.

 

 

After Sugarbush, we drove into Woodstock and went to the Simon Pearce glassblowing factory for lunch. In the basement, they have live glassblowing going on all day that you can watch. After lunch, we hiked to the top of Mount Tom. At the top, there was a pretty view of Woodstock.

After the hike, we explored downtown Woodstock and went to the farmer's market. That night we went to Cloudland farms for dinner. It is a "farm to table" restaurant. Everything they serve there they either produce on the farm or get locally. My favorite part of the meal was the apple tart with caramel sauce. It was a delicious end to our trip! Hopefully this won't be our last trip to Vermont while we live out east!