Apple Picking and Corn Mazing

This Saturday AJ and I had a wonderful fall day. Two of our friends, Maggie and Sara came with us to Apple Charlies, an apple orchard a little south west of Detroit. We bought a large bag to fill and wandered through the many rows of apple trees.
Maggie and AJ
Row of trees with thousands of red apples.

Taste testing a few Me and AJ

Sara was by far our most adventurous apple picker. We would turn our backs on her for a few seconds and return to find her up in the apple trees.

Maggie picking some apples

Maggie, Sara, AJ and me. Of course we made our way into the bakery where each of us indulged in some freshly baked cake donuts.

Halloween isn't right without the perfect pumpkin. We made our way to the pumpkin patch and spent almost a half-an-hour picking just the right one. While ours weighed 25-pounds, Maggie's weighed 30 and one ambitious carver found one that was 85!

Maggie and Sara taking a break

Next we went on to another friend's house to venture through her family's corn maze. Meghan's family has been challenging people in their corn mazes for 8 years now and this year, the swim team took a trip down to find their way through the crazy design.

Me and Meghan

Maggie and Ashley lost in the field of corn. We got lost so easily and couldn't imagine trying to make our way through it at night.

On Sunday AJ and I carved our pumpkin. It seemed a lot smaller when we bought the 25-pounder and we realized it was a really big pumpkin.

AJ's Frankenstein looked wonderful and petrifying! I love making holidays last way longer than just one day!

12 days until Halloween!

Craft Time

On Saturday, October 24, I have a craft show! Naturally, I am freaking out a little and spending almost every waking moment creating and crafting new items!

This is what my bed looks like at the end of each day. Piles of paper, yarn and new items almost completely cover it!
This was my floor but it is my favorite workspace because I can lay out all of my materials and have everything I need out and surrounding me. That little circle in the center is where I would sit to make the following....

These tiny scrapbooks are my newest creation. They are made from brown paper lunch sacks and are perfect little books to fill with pictures.

I worked so much and my fingers were glued together so often that pointer finger formed a blister!

As crazy as it might look and sound, I am really enjoying being able to be creative all day; creating new items, researching new possibilities and visiting hobby stores almost every day.

Happy crafting!

Family Time

When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses. ~Joyce Brothers

Since all of the grandkids have been growing up, it has become more and more difficult to spend time together with the family. Everyone has been movin' and shakin' all over the place and are settling across the U.S. It sounds cliche but time goes so fast and sometimes we get way too caught up in our lives to remember so spend time with our families. Even the few minutes or hours we spent with cousins, aunts, grandpas, etc. was more than enough to remind us how much love a family has for one another.

My cousin Kim, who I can't believe is already a senior (and who I named my hamsters after!) was nominated for her high school's Homecoming Court. Grandma, Grandpa and my mom and I drove down through the rain to the football game to cheer her on.
It was cold and miserably raining but no one could stop smiling while we were shivering huddling together in a big group.

Kim was among 10 girls nominated to the court and she looked so beautiful! We were getting colder just watching her shiver next to her parents who are wearing their winter coats.

We also make a trek down to Muncie, IN to see some more family. My aunt and her family were all together for the weekend and we enjoyed catching up over breakfast and lunch. It had been years since I had seen some of my family and that was way too long.

While we are young and playing around, we don't realize how lucky we are to see each other so often. Now, when we hardly get to see each other is when we need and miss each other the most.

While I got to spend time with my family this weekend, AJ is doing some catching up of his own. His brother, dad, uncle and him are heading to the Lion's game at Ford Field today.

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. ~Desmond Tutu

Ol' Country Road

The other day, I was driving home from Detroit and passed by this field. I have passed by it several times and thought it was amazing. Before the hay could be taken away, I pulled over, grabbed my camera out of my purse and snapped this shot.

I didn't worry too much about getting the perfect composition or lighting because I knew I was going to go home and do some ol' fashioned PhotoShopping. Ever since I purchased Adobe PhotoShop (not the professional version, the one you can get at CostCo for $50) I use it almost everyday. The program can help enhance and fix digital and even scanned photos. By taking a simple image, such as a field, and manipulating over and over, you can learn all sorts of things that the program can do.

The first thing I did was crop the image to make it more visually appealing by using the "Crop" tool. It can be found under the "Image" pulldown menu. There was too much grass in the foreground and I used the closest hay bail on the right to anchor the picture.

Next I changed the photo to black and white by clicking on the "Enhance" pulldown menu and selecting "Convert to Black and White."

Going back to the original color, I enhanced the image by again clicking on the "Enhance" pulldown menu and selecting "Adjust Color" then clicking on "Color Variations." Just by experimenting with all of the color variations, this image was born. It is only slightly different than the original but I think the colors look much brighter.

Another thing that is fun to mess with is the "Hue/Saturation" under the same "Enhance" pulldown menu and under "Color Adjustment." You can adjust the main color in the photograph. This image, for example, is mainly green. By adjusting the hue, I can make the grass look, teal, red, purple, any color.

Filters are another fun way to change photographs; filters can change images to look like drawings, paintings, grainy photographs or just big blurs.
The "Filter Gallery" is under the "Filter" pulldown and there are dozens of different filters that can adjust an image. You can also adjust the degree to which a filter will affect an image, each filter has three different variations that can be manually adjusted.

Happy PhotoShopping!

Falling into Fall

With the chill in the air and the changing leaves all around us, it is totally time for fall. I am having so much fun getting our house ready for the colorful season. The living room mantle is always the first thing to get spruced up. My mom has quite the collection of pumpkins, wreaths and candles that jumble together perfectly.

One of my favorite parts of holiday decorating is finding the things we've had forever, the things that bring back memories and the things that have made it into our photographs for decades now.

As meaningful as some of our old decorations are, new ones are so much fun to come across. This is a new wreath I made for my mom to add to her collection.

Even the bugs are getting into the Halloween spirit! This little guy was hanging out by our garage. It is said that this fuzzy Woolly Bear Caterpillar can tell if the winter is going to be mild or rough. If the orange stripe is narrow, the winter will be mild. But if its thick like this one, well, it looks like we're in for a rough one.

Less than 606 hours until Halloween!

What are you going to be?

Big Night Out

Friday night AJ and I attended the WSU Swimming and Diving Alumni Meet and had so much fun catching up with old teammates and friends. Of course we both participated in the events and I am quite sore after diving with other alumni and the new team.

On Saturday, AJ surprised me with a date at the Melting Pot! It is one of our favorite restaurants and we enjoyed every bite.

As you can see, we are really excited while we are waiting for our table.

Here is what was left of our cheese fondue! We thoroughly enjoyed the Wisconsin Trio with the bread, apples, carrots, and cauliflower. The waiter even joked that 'there might be a few metal shavings left' as we scraped whatever cheese was left.
After a delicious salad it was time for our main meal, a variety of meats to be cooked in a Burgundy wine based broth and dipped in a all kinds of sauces. We treated ourselves to lobster, New York strip, filet mignon, shrimp, ravioli, sausage, and garlic chicken. We got a double serving of broccoli and potatoes. Our stomachs were stuffed but we couldn't stop eating the delicious food!

My favorite course of dinner was dessert! The Melting Pot has over 10 different types of chocolate fondues you can enjoy and if none of those look good, you can create your own. The Cookies and Cream Marshmallow Dream was just right for us and what we couldn't finish, I ate for breakfast the next morning!

Our bellies were so full that it hurt to move after dinner; we had eaten ourselves into a food coma!

Fall Wreath

Wreath:

A ring or circlet of flowers, boughs, or leaves worn on the head, placed on a memorial, or hung as a decoration

Every time I visit my sister and her family, I try and make something for their home. This time, she requested a fall wreath for her front door.

Adrienne requested orange and eggplant purple and we headed to my favorite store to get what we needed. We chose changing leaves, big purple chrysanthenums and yellow and orange beads.

After almost 2 hours of work, wiring and glueing the the leaves and flowers to the grapevine base, the wreath was finished.

Calender:

Days until Halloween: 33

Days until Thanksgiving: 60

Days until Christmas: 96