Fall Favorites

I never used to enjoy the fall season in the past, I think mostly because it signified the beginning of school and the end of summer fun and warmth and all I had to look forward to was freezing cold weather (although I will admit that I am a fan of the snow). Since I no longer get any such summer break (sigh), I'm beginning to realize more and more that I actually do enjoy fall. Maybe it has something to do with being in California as well. As Mark says, fall is the best season in California. The weather isn't too cold, but we've lost that feeling of extreme heat. There's just a little hint of briskness in the air that makes me feel alive! So, in honor of my extreme good feelings for this season that I have harbored so much animosity for in the past... here are my Top 5 Things I Love About Fall.

1) The briskness in the air: I've already talked some about that, but one other thing that I thoroughly enjoy is driving in my car with the windows down in this beautiful weather. I've always really enjoyed feeling the wind as I drive, but it just gets too hot during the summer to actually make this comfortable and too cold during the winter. I just love the feeling of being free. The hair flying around and getting completely ruined isn't my favorite anymore so nowadays I wear my hair in a bun tucked up into a baseball hat. I keep this hat in my car simply for these occasions. For anyone who knows Mark's style, you can tell that this was actually a Mark purchase from some thrift store that he gave me as a gift. I had to take a picture of my "get-up" while I drive home today. I still need the sunglasses because it's too sunny. I probably look crazy to the other drivers as I'm driving around with the windows down and my get-up, singing to the radio turned up high. Good times.


2) Crunchy leaves: I stomp on crunchy leaves. It utterly fills my heart with joy to feel and hear the crunch. I walk along the street trying to step only on the leaves, which means I walk in shorter steps or longer steps or by crossing legs or whatever it takes to get as many leaves as possible. The colors are pretty nice too.

3) Sweatshirt weather: I have been in the mood to wear sweaters for at least the past month but it's been way too warm so I would end up just carrying the sweater around wishing it were cooler. And now it is!

4) Cool weather (especially at night): Can't say enough about how much I love this weather. Snuggling up into bed feels so much nicer now. I love it when Mark comes over and puts his arm around me and snuggles up close. I loved it during the summer as well, but I would get so overwhelmingly hot while trying to stay still just to revel being in his arms.

5) Upcoming holidays: I love the upcoming holidays that just get better and better. It all starts off with Halloween and the fun of dressing up, followed by the amazing amounts of yummy food at Thanksgiving, Christmas time with all its splendor and sincere spirit and family time, New Years Eve to reminisce our engagement, and then... the best of all... my birthday! So much goodness in the next few months.

Runner-up) General Conference! I had such a great time this past weekend listening to the words of our prophets and apostles. Such a time of rejuvenation and growth (that I will hopefully carry on for the next six months). In keeping with my parents family traditions, I made a nice breakfast Sunday morning. As evidenced by the picture below, I was less than enthused to have a photo taken of me fresh out of bed and still groggy. You can see the conference starting on the computer. I'm so glad we were able to get it in our home.



And now, my complete and utter guesses on Mark's Fav 5 for the Fall season...

1) LAKERS!!!! So many games and he'll be able to watch all of them. It honestly is a little intimidating to me at the moment, but I'll get through. The team is looking to be amazing this year. Ron Artest will be a great asset to an already fabulous team. Mark definitely is excited for the games to begin. As he told me recently "it's not that my love for you will change at all, but my love for Lamar will just increase."

2) TV shows: The fall line-up of shows is back on and running. Mark and I enjoy several shows... I'm not going to list all of them because it may be depressing, but just to give you a flavoring: So You Think You Can Dance (mostly my show, but Mark will watch), Survivor, Amazing Race, Glee (amazing show!!), the Office, Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, Community, Project Runway (mostly mine again), Mad Men (Mark's show), Biggest Loser (mine), etc, etc. :)

3) Going along with the sports idea... better sports highlights. Mark loves sports and watches a show called "Pardon the Interruption," which is also known as PTI by some, and (my personal favorite) "two old men fighting about sports" by Abby. It's much more exciting when the highlights and stories aren't all just about horrible ball... as Mark's brothers call baseball.

At this point I'm not positive anymore, so this may be completely inaccurate...

4) Cool weather. Although, he really likes hot weather, but I think he enjoyed the coolness to a certain degree as well, or at least just as a change.

5) Better movies coming up, but that's not for a few more months or so.

Runner-up) The brothers emails. Mark and his brothers have these amazing emails that go back and forth between all of them, which will only get better with the Lakers season and even better things to talk about.

Well, anyone have their own top five list of great things about the fall? Please share!!

Anniversaries!!

Back a few months ago, on May 25th to be exact, Mark and I celebrated our 1 month anniversary! It was crazy at the time to realize that we had been married for a whole month, yet it felt like we had been married for much longer than that. Even more crazy is looking back from our perspective now, when we're coming on six months. How much life has changed in so many ways since our wedding.

We decided that for the first year, we would celebrate our first month by planning an activity together. Then we would switch off planning activities for the third month, sixth month, ninth month, and then one year anniversary. We definitely wanted to celebrate but weren't sure if we wanted to make a huge hoop-la every single month. In fact, this may be sad to admit, but we almost missed our second month anniversary. It wasn't until later in the evening that we realized it had come and almost past.

So, for the first month anniversary we were quite lucky. It ended up landing on Memorial Day (or is it Labor Day? I'm pretty sure Memorial is in the spring, but I always get those so confused and I don't want to look it up right now... look it up yourself if you are burning with curiousity... does this make me a lame blogger when I'm not willing to look up facts? or it just means that I'm months behind and trying to catch up). We decided to have a day up in San Francisco, but not before Mark surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of roses. Thankfully we hadn't been able to return the huge marble holder (as my new brother-in-laws called it when we opened the present as they were also chanting "take it back"), which worked as a beautiful vase and is a great addition to my kitchen decor.


We then drove up to San Francisco where we ate at a yummy Chinese restaurant called Eliza's. Such goodness. Because we apparently really like to eat, we then headed over to Ghirardelli Square for some ice cream. We walked around the little beach area nearby to chat and people watch.


We were a bit full so we just shared one cone, but it was so worth it. I absolutely adore Ghirardelli ice cream (as you can tell from the picture).


And Mark loves making faces, as you can also see from this picture. Oh sigh, I love this man!!


Just as an update: all of the roses in the bouquet eventually dried out and the petals all fell off, except for one. Which still remains in the vase as our "Beauty and the Beast" rose because I haven't found something else to put in the vase. Those petals are on for good!


Then, for our third month anniversary, I planned a little hiking and picnic adventure to the Big Basin Redwood Forest because neither of us had ever been. Unfortunately, Mark hurt his foot playing basketball just a few days before, which he kept telling me he could handle walking on, and he apparently doesn't like driving on windy mountainous roads. And let me tell you, the roads were definitely windy. Mark was such a trooper and went on all these hikes for the few hours we were there, even though his foot really hurt him. What a stud. I forgot my camera and literally have no pictures, but I just stole one off the internet machine of one of the amazing trees you can see there. The trees are so ginormous! They are ridiculously tall and ridiculously large. Some have been there literally for 2000 years and some are as tall as 329 feet! One of the most incredible trees was the Chimney Tree. They believe that several successive fires over years ignited the inside of the tree and created a chimney effect... meaning that the tree is literally hollow from top to bottom. It was insane. Here's the picture I yanked off the internet that someone took from the middle inside of the tree up towards the top:


Anyways, we had fun for both of our anniversary celebrations and we're looking forward to our 6-month later this month. I love Mark more and more and am so lucky to be married to him. Marriage is pretty amazing!