Finally Fall: Welcome Autumn picnic

{living}

As promised here are the pictures from our "Welcome Fall" picnic.  I kept seeing pictures everywhere of fall picnics and thought that would be a really nice get together for early fall, and then when I noticed that the autumnal equinox this year fell on a Sunday (Sunday afternoon being one of the best times for parties for us since my husband has Sundays off and there doesn't seem to be as much going on on Sundays - after Church time anyway), I knew it was meant to be. {haha} A lot of the inspiration I had seen for fall picnics had (as does most fall-themed things) centered largely around pumpkins and orange color schemes, but since I already use a lot of pumpkins and pumpkin inspired color schemes for Halloween parties and Pre-Thanksgiving dinner I wanted to go in a little different direction with it.  I knew that we were going to be going to pick apple sometime in September, and used that as a starting point.  I also wanted to make sure that it had an early fall feel since it was the first official day of fall, so I went with apples and sunflowers and pinwheels and shades of red and sunflower/marigold/deep yellow for the decorations, and served apple cider and finger foods that were apple themed (apple blondies, apple pie cookies, caramel apple bites, carmelized onion and apple mini quiches, mini bacon-cheddar quiches, and grilled cheddar with bacon on honey-apple-oat bread tea sandwiches). 

I also got a couple vinyl tablecloths to put down on the ground (which really turned out to be good thing because the ground was still a little damp from rain the night before) and a few bales of straw to sit on (or against) and a few cheap fleece throws to cover them. 

I had an idea to use a pallet to put all the food on and then I had the idea to put fancy little legs on it and make a little table out of it.  My husband managed to get a pallet to use and made the table for me.

We dug a couple old picnic baskets out of our basement (they had been my grandparent's) and I put the glasses and straws on them. And set the basket I had taken apple picking next to them with some burgundy and yellow mums nestled inside.

I hung the banner I had made out of leftover fabric from other projects on the fence and the scene was set.

 
 

Finally Fall!: Apple Picking

{doing}

Ah Fall! My favorite season.......
To kick off all the awesomeness that is fall we went to Carter Mountain Orchard last week to pick some apples.  Technically Fall didn't start until Sunday (Sept. 22) but we thought we'd get a little jump start on it (especially since we kinda dragged summer out as long as we could for our river trips) and go apple picking.  Also we had a "Welcome, Autumn" picnic planned for Sunday and I wanted to have plenty of apples to use for making goodies for that.  (my next post will have the pictures from the picnic).  It was a great day and a beautiful place to be! we did get a little later start heading out there then we had wanted to (that's a long story) and but we still had plenty of time to pick our fair share of apples and browse their gift shop.  We're hoping to go back again sometime in October though and make a longer day of it, because we discovered that it is literally right next to Michie Tavern, and we actually ended up stopping in the gift shops that they have in the mill on the property, but next time we want to have lunch there and do the tour.  But in the meantime here are some of the pictures of the Orchards and the amazing views there.  I highly suggest going (if you are in the area anyway, lol, it is right outside of Charlottesville, VA which is about an hour and a half drive from us here in Fredericksburg.  A drive we know well though - my sister went to UVA).  It is a great family activity.  And as well As Michie Tavern being right there Monitcello (Thomas Jefferson's House) is also right there as is another historical home (but for the life of me I can't remember which one right now :/ )

looking across the rows of the orchard

picking an apple (this one was golden delicious, the other apples that were available for picking when we went were jonagolds and we actually picked more of them, I had never tried them before but they are really good, both for eating and in the stuff I made for the picnic)

enjoying some of their delicious apple cider and the view

glorious view

glorious view

there's a vineyard there too....

 

ahhh.... {sigh}.....

{doing}&{living}

Well, summer is just about over, and I think for almost the first time ever I'm actually a little disappointed to see it go so soon..... and I think that's a weird combination of both doing a lot of new fun things (berry picking, river rafting.... especially river rafting....) and also not getting the opportunity to do some of the stuff I really wanted to do this summer (basically all my little road trips I've been planning to different places in VA).  I know, I know that whole statement seemed to contradict itself, like I said a weird combination.  We did get one more trip down the river in this past week though, but we're thinking that at this point the water is probably going to be getting too cold to do anymore this fall (especially since we wouldn't be able to this coming week), but you never know............
    While I am a bit sorry to see summer go I am still ridiculously excited about the fact that it is basically fall! I love all the seasons each for their own reasons (although in general I like summer least because it's hot lol), but I think if I absolutely had to pick a favorite season, it would be a tough choice, but it would have to be fall.  I mean cool weather, that is so, so welcome and refreshing after summer's heat; changing leaves; all the yummy flavors of fall cooking and baking; and of course the highest concentration of awesome holidays! So after thinking about it for the past couple weeks I decided I wasn't as upset that we didn't get our road trips in, in the summer after all, because really fall would be a great time for them too, maybe even stretching over winter and into spring....... (perhaps Paris{Virginia, that is} for Valentine's Day.....).  And of course the plans and want-to-do's for fall are piling up as well.  I'm hoping to go apple picking with my hubster this week, and then have a welcome fall picnic next Sunday afternoon (the first official day of Autumn), and then there's all sorts of pumpkin and Halloween fun, and our annual Halloween party, and then Thanksgiving, and our annual "Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner" that we host, and of course getting into the Christmas Season! So yeah..... I'm sure I'll be blogging about a bunch of that stuff.  I'm also in the mood to do some minor redecorating/remodeling around the house, nothing big really but changing out some decorations maybe a new {round, this time} kitchen table and built in banquette seating for it (we have this weird little breakfast nook so I've still got a little figuring to do to see if I can fit a big enough round table in there to not lose seating, since we don't really have a dining room (because it's the craft room) so unless I go to the trouble of setting up the folding table in the living room (like for formal meals), the kitchen table is really our only eating space..... but I'm hopeful lol). I also want to finally get my gallery wall of places we've visited going in the upstairs hallway, (I've been planning that since even before I knew my husband and so far have like 5 pictures hung) and I've started working on a monogram gallery wall in the living room to replace the movie posters I used to have hanging in there...... (There's also a wing chair I'm working towards re-doing, but I'm not going to hold my breathe for that getting done right away).  And of course anything I do want to get done with the house I want to try to get done before "Pre-Thanksgiving" so I'm going to be working on a lot of that stuff over the next month and a half or so as well.
    So with all that said, I'll just add that I hope you have lots of fun activities planned for the best season ever, and hopefully we will make it to the orchard this week and I can share it with you!

Summer Bucket List: River Excursion

{doing}
 Well, we really waited until the last minute to check this one off the summer bucket list, but we finally made our trip down the river this week (on Tuesday)!  Actually, I think waiting this late actually was a good thing for several reasons. {1}we were able to get a lot of our gear on sale, {2}it wasn't crazy hot and humid, and {3}the water level on the river was a little higher then it might have been in the middle of the summer (although IDK about this year with all the rain we had over the summer) which made it easier to get through without having to get out and walk the boat as much.  And let me tell you it was awesome! Defintely something we will be doing again! (in fact I even went back to AndThat! yesterday and got a second of the inflatable boats that we had so that my husband and I each have our own and we can be a little more comfortable and not be so cramped - and it was on clearance for $19.99 by now.... can't beat that!)
    The Rappahannock River begins in the Blue Ridge Mountains and flows down through Fredericksburg on it's way to the Chesapeake Bay.  Fredericksburg, in fact, was built right at the fall line of the river.  In Colonial times when shipping between the Colonies and England was vitally important we were the furthest inland the ships containing goods sent from England could travel on the Rappahannock (which is one of Virginia's Major rivers).  The area was also rich in iron ore, which was mined here (George Washington's father was involved in it), and became a tobacco port as well.  Of course the history of Fredericksburg and the river could go on for pages and pages (book and books even) and if you're interested definitely look it up because it really is an interesting little city we live in (in fact even come and have a visit.... we have quite a few historic sites ranging from colonial times and the places George Washington grew up and his family lived for many years, to Civil War sites, to nostalgic businesses that have been in operation since the 1950's).  But I'm supposed to be talking about our trip down the river right now..............
    We started our journey just north of Fredericksburg at Mott's Run. (there is a public boat launch there) and planned to travel the somewhere between 5 and 6 mile stretch of river down to City Dock (I think the sign at Mott's Run said it was something like 5.5 miles). We passed under interstate 95, past the site where the Embrey Damn, once stood, and (had we actually made it the whole way would have passed) under US 1 and right past historic downtown Fredericksburg, to City Dock.  Now I will say we didn't actually make it all the way to City Dock, partly because we got a later start than we had intended (Someone *coughmyhusbandcough* left the valves for the boat at home and a friend had to come pick me up to take me back to the house to get them (although on the bright side he was able to come with us, which he thought he wasn't going to be able to do, since we were starting out later), but we did make it to the point the river runs right next to Fall Hill Ave. in Fredericksburg (check out the Friends of The Rappahannock website for more info about this leg of the river..... they also have maps of it... not sure if they are online or not though).  It was really a great trip.  There were calm stretches of river were we were able to just stretch out and relax, there was one area that was nice and deep so my husband and our friend got out and swam for a while (we were afraid the water was going to be cold but it was actually just right), there are areas where you have to paddle and steer your way around rocks (or sometimes get out and walk the boat over real shallow areas) and there are even a few little rapids.  Most of the pictures I got were of the calm areas, because that was the only place I really felt comfortable taking my phone out of it's two ziploc bags to take pictures (I've been wanting one for a while anyway but now I think I definitely need to look into getting a waterproof digital camera! (I used to have a waterproof film camera and loved it)).  So enjoy the pictures I do have of our excursion, and maybe even do a little research and think about planning a trip of your own :)

The view of the river from the top of the boat launch at Mott's Run

My husband inflating our boat...... we got a good deal on this, it came with two oars (not great ones, he managed to break them both by the time we were done, but still) and a pump to inflate it for $40.00 originally, and then our friend got one the day we went and I got another one the day after on clearance for $20.00 each!)

Finally on the water

you can get an idea of why I went and got us a second boat.... lol this is me trying to stretch out. Once I figured out to put my legs over the side though I was quite comfortable on the calm stretches of the river.  Also I actually got a sunburn on my legs which I don't ever remember having before except maybe once..... I'm assuming it was from spending so much time with my legs up like this.

I threw this one in there for comic relief..... I couldn't see my phone's screen very well as I was taking pictures because of the sunlight and didn't realize there was a little something extra in this one until looking at the pictures later...... that's the corner of the two bags I had my phone in to keep it dry.

One of the little rapids we went over after we passed it. Definitely a fun part of the trip (even if they were little) 

This cute little island would have been a nice place to stop for lunch, but we didn't see it until we were too far past

we saw a lot of wildlife, especially birds, along the way.  This is an enlargement of this picture so the quality is not great but it's one of the Herons we saw out that day

The I95 bridge in the distance as we're nearing it

going under I95

one of several man made stone walls we saw along the way.  Also the last picture I have from the trip we still had a little stretch of river we travelled after this before calling it a day, but my phone had been already telling me the battery was low for a while when I took this and I didn't want it to die in case we needed it for an emergency call (which we kind of did since we got off the river earlier then expected and needed to call my mom to come pick us up) (although we were at that point technically within walking distance from our house, but it's a pretty good walk from there - I've done it before - and we were tired and had a bunch of gear lol)