apple picking

I love Fall, it is definitely my favorite season though it seems like we are currently being cheated out of fall here in NY.  We had a glimpse of fall weather and now its back to being 80 degrees outside, I'm over this.  I want a real fall... I want tights and boots weather!!!  Anyway, enough with my complaining.

One of the things I most look forward to in fall is apple picking.  A couple weekends ago Kevin, Will, Jenna, Alex, Max and I traveled to Chester, NJ to go apple picking.  Guess what, it was 80 freakin' degrees... booooo.  Even though it was way to warm it didn't stop us from having a good time.  I picked way too many apples as usual and was sweaty and hot from dragging my heavy bag of apples around with me.

Now I am making applesauce... lots and lots of applesauce!!!

lasagna cook-off

Two weekends ago we had another one of the cook-offs that we (by "we" I mean Kevin) compete in... a lasagna cook-off.

I don't even remember the last time I had lasagna and since it was kinda chilly on Saturday I was super excited for the competition.  Chilly weather = warm comfort food weather in my book!  Kevin made Buff Chixxx Lasagna (buffalo chicken lasagna) from his friend Belgeri's recipe.  I was kinda grossed out reading the ingredients... mostly because I think blue cheese dressing is yucky.  The whole idea of the lasagna is basically to deconstruct hot wings into lasagna form.  It is your basic lasagna with lots of hot sauce added to the red sauce and a blue cheese sauce along with the regular mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.  YUM!!!  The finished product looked pretty amazing...

There were 10 lasagnas in total and they were all soooo good!  It is definitely not easy to eat that much lasagna though, I was a little overzealous with my first three portions and had to downsize my portions for the other 7.

In the end Kevin won Most Creative and Jenna won 1st place!!!

Sooooo excited!!!

Awwww love these guys:)

1st, 2nd 3rd place and Most Creative.

I of course made some cupcakes.  It was the first time I made cupcakes from scratch for a cook-off.  I made Oreo cookies&cream cupcakes.  They were a HUGE hit... I was told they are the best ones I have made yet.  It really go me super excited to be more adventurous with my cupcake baking and to really make more of an effort to bake from scratch.

Don't they look amazing, oh man they were so delicious!!!

the st. louis arch

Next stop after the zoo on that super hot day was the Arch.

 

Kevin is so small... can you see him? 

Did you know that the Arch is as wide at the base as it is tall?  Pretty cool.

We went all the way up to the top.  Getting up there isn't exactly comfortable and not for anyone who is at all claustrophobic!  You sit in a little egg that barely fits 5 people and take a bumpy ride up to the top... very slowly.  Apparently people got stuck in there a couple weeks before we went - thank goodness that didn't happen to us!  Oh look it's the Cardinals! 

the st. louis zoo

I have been asking to go to the St. Louis zoo ever since Kevin and I were in STL almost 3 years ago so when we made our trip in late July the zoo was at the top of my list of things to do. Of course the weekend we decide to head to STL it happens to be nearly 100 degrees every day but I wasn't going to let that stop our adventure.  Anyone who knows me well knows how much I LOVE zoos and aquariums.
 

Awww snuggling:)

Did you know that the STL zoo is the largest free zoo in the country? Isn't that awesome?  It did feel kinda weird walking into the zoo without buying a ticket.

The scariest bird we have ever seen.

Since it was soooooo HOT some of the animals were hiding... particularly the big cats.  We definitely got to see enough animals to make the trip totally worth it though.

On our little zoo adventure I realized I can zoom in even closer then I thought I could... extreme close-up!

I cannot wait to go back next time we are in St. Louis!

my bridal shower

Originally I thought I wasn't going to have a bridal shower... I don't know it just didn't really seem like my thing and honestly I dread opening presents in front of other people. When Cyndi (my MIL) told me her friends wanted to throw me a bridal shower in St. Louis I was excited but a little nervous.  What was it going to be like having a shower with a bunch of women I had never met before... was it going to be awkward opening the presents?  I really shouldn't have worried at all because the bridal shower was so much fun and so beautifully done.

I honestly cannot thank Donna and Sharron enough for throwing the perfect shower.  Every detail was just so sweet.  Oh, the cakes... ummm the cakes were delicious!!!

I got so many amazing things off our registry... so many fun items for the kitchen.  The funniest/funnest present was definitely the "panty poem" from Kevin's cousin Lauren.  I had to read a poem and pull out a pair of panties to go with each line... every panty was attached to a long string that we passed around the room... too funny!

I felt so blessed to be surrounded by so many women (most of whom I had never met) who were so genuinely happy and excited for me.  It was such a great experience.

happy birthday dad!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

You are the most amazing, loving, talented and just all around awesome dad!  I am one lucky daughter.  I love you so much!!!

(his birthday is actually October 3 - don't worry I wished him a happy birthday yesterday)

wedding withdrawl

I have to admit that it is pretty sad that the wedding is over.  I spent months and months thinking about and planning our wedding every single day and now there is a big void where the wedding planning craziness used to be.  So now I just stare at the wedding photos we have so far... I cannot wait to get the rest of the professional photos from our photographers.  

*photo by DJ Zac Barr*

Thank goodness so many family and friends took and posted so many photos!

*photo by Ryan Mauro*