Archive for November, 2009
Fall.ing in love…
I love the Fall! In California, Fall means a brisk morning where you have to *gasp!* wear an accent scarf! Still, those brisk mornings make me giddy and I love finding people who share the same love for Fall. Enter the Nordvedt sisters. Alec and I met Brit and Brey through church and have enjoyed serving alongside them and getting to know them over the past several months. It wasn’t until Brey and I were talking over pumpkin spice something-or-other coffee drinks that we discovered our mutual passion for Fall. This led to a search for “the best pumpkin patch within a reasonable driving distance.” We live in LA, people, and didn’t have plans to drive 6 hours to find a farm, or at least a pumpkin patch that wasn’t situated conveniently [and sadly] close to a freeway.
We found the Underwood Family Farms, in Moorpark, and enjoyed a really great day of pumpkins, pig races, a corn maze and fresh sweet potato chips. It was like a little family day out with siblings and I’m looking forward to coming back next year!
We're excited to be there...
This guy was really cool...
pumpkins!
we spent more time coming up with corn puns that trying to find a way out...
We made it!
they ran out of sweet potatoes at the fresh chip booth and we weren't going to take no for an answer, so we went to the produce stand and bought our own...
They said yes! They were confused, but said they'd cut and fry our potatoes for us. Victory!
so yummy!
good day at the pumpkin patch...
a Spooktacular Halloween…
I have fond memories of Halloween… dressing up, spending time with neighbors and family… and all that candy!?! What could be better for little (and big) kids than that!? I never associated Halloween with being evil, just fun. As October approached and my giddy-ness went on overdrive, I asked my brother and mom (who graciously accompanied me on a 4 store search for cobwebs and a candle that drips red) what they remembered about Halloween when we were kids. Costumes, pictures with family, searching out the best neighborhoods for Trick-or-Treating, daring to go through the [embarrassingly] mild Haunted House in my neighbors garage… then as we got older, it was my brother and I laboring over a Halloween mix tape and placing a boom box in the front window of my parents house to let “Thriller”, “Monster Mash” and “Weird Science” lure costumed children to our door, and my dad keeping count of the hundreds of kids that would squeal “Trick or Treat!!” on our porch. This explained it. My love for the spooky-just a little dark-not too gory-Halloween fun was nurtured from a young age.
The first Halloween Alec and I lived in our apartment, I came home late evening on Halloween to a packed neighborhood. I had almost forgotten it was Halloween, but was surprisingly nostalgic watching the kids (and dogs and parents) dressed to impress the candy dispensing adults who held the fate of their sugary future… Come to find out, our neighborhood is the Halloween mecca of Santa Monica!! We’ve enjoyed the last few Halloweens cruising the neighborhood with my brother and sister-in-law and friends. These people don’t mess around! One street is so elaborately decorated that they have to hire security and block off a section of the street. I assume some insanely creative (and wealthy) producer lives there – they host a full blown walk-through haunted house and there are ghostly scenes all over their corner lot including barbershop quartet dressed skeletons on a tandem bike and an open 50s convertible with a skeleton bride and groom – complete with a “just buried” sign and “Going to the Chapel” playing from the speakers (sounding so much more creepy that it used to!!) I’ll take pictures next year!
These days Halloween looks like this: drool over the Martha Stewart magazine Halloween edition (preferable with Lisa Welch, who giggles as much as I do looking at it), watch Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands until the DVD starts skipping, dust off my Poe anthology and re-read all the greatest, and enjoy a really fun night with my family and friends. I think we hit all the basics this year: enjoyed some ‘horror’ d’oeuvres – check. Got scared by two 10 year olds hiding behind a tree – check. Watched Thriller – check. Fell asleep with a tummy full of candy – check. Some things never change…
