95 Years

I can only hope if I live to be 95 that I would be surrounded by as many loved ones as Matt's grandfather.

We were in Pensacola this weekend celebrating Grandpa's 95th birthday. We went for one night, and it's amazing how much quicker we get places now Mattie is a bit older!

We also got to spend some quality time with Matt's family, and Mattie got to love on her favorite canine friend.

We picked up a couple of lightsabers at a Cracker Barrel on our way down. Star Wars is the latest obsession.

Zombied Out

You would think that after watching every episode of The Walking Dead during a marathon a few weeks ago, a few Friday the 13th movies as well as several of the Halloween flicks this past week during AMCs Scare-A-Thon, I would be getting tired of all the gore.

Nope.

I'm a slasher film lover. I don't know why, but those cheesy movies from the 70s and 80s like Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Friday the 13th are my favorites. I could watch Halloween over and over. I was actually hoping it would be on again tonight because I missed parts four and five last night.

When I was in middle and junior high school, a lot of the sleepovers we had consisted of staying up as late as we could watching as many of these movies as we could get in. I can remember after watching one at my house, someone swore there was a man in the yard. We probably woke up the entire neighborhood with our screams.

I'm glad AMC shows the movies because other channels don't anymore. It just doesn't feel much like Halloween without them!

Happy Halloween

CSA Wednesday

On Wednesday we head to a local farm to pick up produce as part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Here's what we got today:

Farm-fresh eggs

Massive sweet potatoes

Bok Choy - it goes great as a substitute for cabbage in cabbage stew

Turnip Greens - the turnip at the bottom is my favorite part

Dismals Canyon

Tucked away in the northwest corner of Alabama are two cabins, a country store and a trail that winds through Dismals Canyon.

I've lived in Alabama my whole life and had not heard of this place until we were doing some reading about our state a few months ago. This well-kept secret is literally located in the middle of nowhere, but Kevin, the exceptionally friendly employee, swears the cabins stay booked every weekend.

It was the perfect weekend for bundling up and enjoying the daylight hours outdoors while building a fire and roasting marshmallows inside at night. 

My favorite time of year to be in the woods is during the fall when the weather turns cooler. It supposedly got down to 28 degrees one night, and, according to the folks on the weather channel, it was colder in western Alabama on Friday than it was in Maine.

One of the more interesting sites to behold are the dismalites, or glowworms, that are visible on the night tours. There's also a waterfall (the map shows two, but we were not able to find the second one). The path leading into the canyon has a lot of stairs, so be prepared if you go with young children.

I had visions of sitting on this porch and reading. HA!

Anyone with young children should know how that went. I did make it out the final morning for about two minutes to sip my coffee.

Even though I didn't get to spend quality reading time on the porch, I did come across this book that made for excellent bedtime reading.

I love spooky stories and wish I would have had a few more days to stay there just to read more of this volume. Not much else beats the thrill of a bone-chilling story while in a cabin in the woods.

CSA Wednesday

On Wednesday we head to a local farm to pick up produce as part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Here's what we got today:

Bok Choy

Winter Squash

Fresh eggs

Lettuce

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

Fall and Halloween mean there's no short supply of pumpkins.

It's no different around here.

Last week we took a trip to a nearby pumpkin patch. After the hayride and a demonstration on the buoyancy of pumpkins and how to figure out the weight of a pumpkin by measuring its circumference and diameter (some addition and division were part of the formula - I'm no math whiz, so don't ask me to recall it), we made our pick.

Jack turned his into a Jack-O-Lantern this weekend. He drew the face, and Matt did the carving.

And today we used our artistic skills to paint pumpkins. I saw this post last night and decided to give it a try this morning. There were a lot of steps to these instructions, but all we did was trace the pumpkin, mixed some paint and dotted away with our Q-Tips.

 

Even though I was as neat as possible, and Jack was sloppily putting the paint on his, it's the one that most resembles a pumpkin. He's a true artist in the making!

Look closely at Mattie's, and you'll see the faint markings of the traced pumpkin. As Jack said, she did her best!

It's too bad we'll be out of town Friday for the annual Jack-O-Lantern carving contest that takes place on campus. It's always a real treat.