Forts, Smores, & Eastern Market

A few weeks ago, after a pretty grueling week of work we decided that there was only one choice for the use of Friday night: build an epic fort & eat smores! 

Check out this beauty! 

I'll admit, building forts is a favorite childhood pastime of mine. What could be better than transforming your living room into a hideout complete with pillows and every blanket that you own?? Thankfully Brandon is a fort architect genius. 

The view from inside. :) Very comfy I must say.

After we set up camp we turned on.. what else? But Harry Potter! (Yes it may seem that we are kind of obsessed with HP right now. We started watching the first movie on Halloween and plan to watch every movie until we're done. I think that night we watched #2. :) Seriously such an amazing story. J.K. Rowling you are a brilliant woman.

About halfway through the movie we initiated our first use of our S'mores Maker! We got this lovely gift for our wedding but we hadn't had a good excuse to use it. (Plus to be honest, I was a little skeptical that it would work!) But boy did it! This is the before picture (before we popped it into the microwave, with the water placed inside the back container area.)

30 seconds later.... BEAUTIFUL, scrumptious, perfectly-melted chocolate s'mores!!! 

Life doesn't get much better than this ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who would like to partake of this amazing device is welcome to stop by. 

On a Saturday afternoon, we decided to cross off another item on our DC Bucket List and stopped by delicious, interesting, and delightful Eastern Market! 

Many friends have recommended coming here, especially for their breakfast treats- sadly we got there a little too late for breakfast items but we sampled some other tasty food & loved "window" shopping all the many vendors.

The pavillon at Eastern Market was filled with all kinds of fresh fruits & vegetables, cheeses, and meat. 

We got a yummy fajita wrap and some cupcakes for our lunch. YUM! We also bought a way cool photograph of the Washington Monument during the cherry blossom festival that we loved. Again, come to our home to see it! We also enjoyed seeing some cool jewelry, clothes, food, & various other booths all over the market. Let's just say: some very quality people watching opportunities as well. 

On our way back home, we saw this awesome sign- did anyone know that DC is trying to become a state?? haha we had no idea! Maybe DC will be the 51st state? 

And just so you see our faces on this post: we were there together. Even though it was a brisk day, it was still pretty nice out! Sunny and blue skies. We had a lovely date together. Ignore my creepy look in this pic- Brandon looks dashing though. 

We'll definitely be back to check out more of Eastern Market's treasures.

Fall in the East Coast!

It's official! Fall in the East Coast is simply stunning!!! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the DC/Virginia area these past few weeks:

One Sunday afternoon, we went for a walk around our apartment complex and this rich red tree in the sunlight was so pretty!

And one Saturday we decided to go driving around to see the Fall colors. Along George Washington Memorial Parkway, Brandon and I couldn't get over how beautiful the fall colors were and stopped to take a few pictures at the scenic overlook.

This was just a few weeks ago and yes Brandon was wearing shorts in November. :)

So many different colors! 

One of my favorite things about living in Virginia is how distinct the seasons are here and how many trees there are! The colors have been changing really slowly and it's been pretty decent weather but because there are legitimately trees everywhere, it's pretty hard to not see some great Fall colors everywhere. I feel like in Utah & Colorado where I've lived my whole life you usually have to drive up into the mountains to see the colors and I LOVE living in an area where it's all around you! (though I promise- I still do miss my mountains.) 

Fall meets the Potomac River!

Then Brandon surprised me by taking me on a beautiful drive to Rock Creek Park- this giant national park in the middle of DC.

aaah! It makes me just giddy...

I seriously LOVE this.

So Rock Creek is smack dab in the middle of downtown D.C. and goes all the way up to Maryland. I had no idea it even existed and it provided a beautiful walk!

Cheesy picture with the fence I know

There are also hiking trails we hope to go back and explore

Trying to be artsy...

Love my Anne of Green Gables bridge scene with my man. 

We had a lovely Saturday together enjoying Fall in DC. 

Then just last week I accomplished a MAJOR goal of mine: I made homemade bread!! 

Can you believe it?? As pathetic as it sounds, working with yeast has always scared me and I've put it off for too long. So with a lot of coaching from my mom- my hero in all things domestic and despite not having a kitchen mixer, my bread turned out pretty good!  WOO HOO!

Speaking of mother of the year, my sweet, angelic mother recently had a birthday! 

This marvelous mom is truly incredible. I love this picture of her 24 years ago holding little me on my blessing day. Isn't she so beautiful?? 

Though we weren't able to be with my mom on her big day, she was definitely well loved by these adorable grandkids. :) Happy Birthday Mom! LOVE YOU SO! 

Halloween Festivities!

So for Halloween we decided to dress up as one of my favorite characters, and personal heros: Mary Poppins & of course Bert! 

Ever since I was little, I've loved Mary Poppins and her practically perfect ways. Brandon was a sweetheart to be Mary's matching half. He makes a pretty adorable Bert. 

We dressed up for our ward's Halloween party/ Trunk or Treat and though we arrived 10 minutes late we were shocked to be the 3rd family there. Slowly the rest of the ward showed up 30-45 minutes later. After some chili and cornbread, we went out to our car and gave all the cute little kids some candy who came trunk or treating by. We especially enjoyed seeing our kids from our primary class who we teach each Sunday.

Such a jolly holiday to be with him! He was ready to go steppin time at any moment! We ordered an awesome chimney sweep for his costume but it literally arrived right after the party was over. Ha so sad. 

I owe my awesome costume to my mother! She actually made all of it for me back in 7th grade and I haven't grown much since then so it fit pretty well still. (thank goodness for my jacket that covered up the skirt zipper!) She found it when cleaning out our storage this summer back in August and I knew it'd make the perfect costume for Halloween this year! 

We also received a delightful Halloween package from my sister Alison & my nephews Ashton & Carson. Complete with beautiful pictures, a letter, and... these AWESOME masks! We had instructions that Brandon was to wear the owl mask, and me the kind witch. :) We were happy to oblige!

We've so missed being close by to family these past few months so we LOVE getting packages in the mail. 

We had a lovely time carving pumpkins the day before Halloween! Brandon commemorated the Jazz's opening basketball game by carving his own Jazz-o-lantern. 

And I stuck with my stencil and with Brandon's help got a little creative with my pumpkin's nose. And I saw some cool ideas on pinterest to decorate a pumpkin with a drill. So with the extra pumpkin we had, we decided to just do a line/dot pattern. I thought it looked pretty cool all finished up and glowing!

Lights on

Lights off! (And to those of you who might think that the 3rd smaller pumpkin is somehow symbolic of something... no we are not expecting.) :) 

Then on actual Halloween for work we had a wig theme and were to wear our "blackest black." I found this 60's beehive up-do wig at Target and wore it all day. It got pretty hot and very itchy. Wigs will not be a new addition to my permanent wardrobe.  

How do I look with BLACK hair? Kinda crazy! 

One of my friends at our work Halloween party had the same wig in blond! 

And I must say Brandon & I have some very ADORABLE nieces & nephews! Here they are in their Halloween costumes:

Ashton & Carson (Sulley & Mike Wazowski) 

Xander, Spencer, & Sadie (Batman, Robin, & Cat Woman)

Mariah & Lacey (Snow White & a Strawberry)

And just for fun: this is me and Brandon around 1 or 2 years old in our Halloween finest. Please observe my awesome mullet-clown combo & Brandon's completley sweet lion outfit. :) A blast from the past indeed. We enjoyed Halloween night not giving out candy to trick or treaters (we knew we wouldn't see a one, being on a third floor apartment complex) so we enjoyed some autumn soup, elegant spice muffins, and Harry Potter. Happy Halloween!!