A Quarter Century!

Just a quick post to celebrate my husband's 25th Birthday! Not too big of a celebration since it was just the two of us but it was still a great day. We previously celebrated his birthday last weekend with my parents and sister at TAPS for an Octoberfest beer dinner which was amazing.

For his birthday dinner we decided to head to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch game 2 of the NLDS since Pat loves the place. We got to watch the Phillies on the big screen while enjoying great beer and wings. They gave us a scare the first half of the game but came back for a great win!

Wearing our Phillies gear!!

His birthday cake was delicious, but I wish I had time to hand make the cake itself instead of using a box. He wanted red velvet cake and I didn't want to hassle the food coloring so I bought a box instead. To make up for it I made the frosting from scratch and it turned out great! It was a cream cheese whipped cream frosting and it went perfect with the cake. To be honest, I wanted to just eat the frosting; the cake was more of an accompaniment to the deliciousness of the frosting. Hopefully next year I will have a great recipe for the cake as well so I don't have to use a box.

His birthday cake with 24 regular candles and a baseball glove on top of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup for the 25th!

So many candles!!! What an old man =)

Bon Appétit!

Pumpkin Patch

I don't know if it's just the nice fall weather or finally having a house to decorate, but I am so excited for Halloween this year! It has been a few years so I have really been looking forward to carving some pumpkins (and baking pumpkin seeds-yum!) Luckily I read an article out of a local event paper that highlighted a great family owned pumpkin patch in the area. Lavender Hill Pumpkin Farm is the place and it is in Fallbrook, CA. Only about 20 minutes from our house and we were in pumpkin wonderland!

I looked over their website before going and really thought it was a great choice since they were very low-thrills...just a good variety of home-grown pumpkins, and lots to choose from. What I really loved about the place was their quirky side. They had quite a few abnormal pumpkins and have named them all different and creative names.

The pumpkin "museum" with all of the named pumpkins

More of the named pumpkins

They named their pumpkins after all sorts of people, both real and made up. I saw a "Darth Vader," "Zeus," "Xerxes," "The Ugly Duckling," "Iago," and so on.

"Gargantua" the creamy one, and "Gort" the misshapen one, and

I can't remember the third one.

They have around 30 varieties of pumpkins to choose from which really makes your decision tough, especially if you are extra picky like me. I made Pat walk all over the pumpkin patch as I searched for the perfect large carving pumpkin, small carving pumpkins, and decorating pumpkins. In the front they had a bunch of small varieties to make your picking a little easier, which of course just made me want to buy even more.

I think this picture of the green and white pumpkin is my favorite type I found that day. Besides of course the "Cinderella" type which we will have to get next year.

My pumpkin I will carve into when we found it on our search.

Pat chose the perfect shirt for the day...Flyers started the pre-season today (I think) and a great orange color for the pumpkin patch. Though I don't know if he planned it like that.

2 pumpkins found so far...

Our bounty!

The guy told us all of the different varieties when we paid. Of course I don't remember them all but we did get a bumpy one that was a "Rumpelstiltskin" variety! Now we can start decorating for Halloween and Fall!

And I wanted to end with our adorable kitties...I take way too many pictures of them so I figured I might as well share one of them actually hanging out together. Happy October!

Settled yet?

What do you know...another long gap in posts and I really don't have a big excuse for it. We have been safe and sound in California for over a month now and yet I have really been slacking on the whole blogging thing. I really will try to get better at it!

We have had quite a busy month or so. ( I guess that could be partly to blame!) After our successful drive across the country (post coming soon-need to get pictures from by bro), we started to get our house ready for the movers who were arriving about a week after we did. Luckily, my wonderful G-ma was able to help us go through all of the items she left behind in her house. She really is an amazing woman and so full of energy. I don't know what we would have done without her help and that extra push she always seems to give me.

Before all of our furniture arrived, we had a little welcome home celebration at my parents house with some close family and friends. It was such a great way to come home without having to worry about a bunch of people coming over. That was probably the first semi-relaxing day we had had since we officially started packing everything up a week before the move.

The beautiful welcome home cake created by my sister and mom!

My dad and Pat relaxing before the party

Then it was time for the movers... we really lucked out on this (thank god I had a wonderful co-worker whose husband happened to own a moving company-thank you Maggie!) The driver and helpers were wonderful and did a great job getting all of our belongings to our new home safe and sound. I think we only had one plastic bin that was slightly dented. Of course once they were done all the fun began!

Pat and I definitely have our priorities strait...our first goal was to get our tv set-up so we could watch movies while we unpacked! I think we watched about 4 movies back-to-back before we were close to having the kitchen ready. The rest of the family room wasn't too bad. Our bedroom took a little longer...lots of books and other little things to put away. Actually, we still haven't finished since we have tons of pictures and things to put up. That will probably be a work in progress for quite awhile.

All of this fit into the trunks of our two cars!

Most of our bedroom things

Watching "Step Brothers" while we unpacked!

I think overall it took us about 2 weeks to fully unpack (with some small stuff still left).

Found the perfect spot for our "Priscilla" painting! She is my great Aunt and a wonderful artist! (Those books will be in the community garage sale...all national geographic if anyone is interested)

Gizmo hiding and Tigger laying on top of her as we get all settled!

We really love our new home and can't wait to have visitors over. We are very fortunate that Pat's mom has already come out for a visit and we all had a great time! We can't wait to have her back as well as whomever would like to come with her. The post on our week together will come soon.

All in all we are very happy and excited for what is to come here in Escondido!

Here are a few pictures of some of the finished product from our new home:

Our master bath

Bedroom with some pics up

Other view of room...

I love my new kitchen!!!

Our mix and match family room

Our wedding party photo hanging over our fire place!