A great fall weekend

I love this time of year! Everything just seems more exciting during Fall. It's nice enough to be outside without sweating, but not so cold that you have to be stuffed into a coat that makes you immobile.

We spent Saturday night at a friend's Fall potluck. I've been great friends with Jen since we worked together at Clear Channel. She and her husband just had a new deck put on to their house, so it was the reason to have people over.


We had some great food. Her husband, Vijay, made an awesome sausage and kale soup and there were lots of other tasty dishes. I brought a sweet potato casserole and there was also a butternut squash casserole, homemade mac and cheese, some other potatoes and appetizers and pumpkin desserts. We ended up coming in the house because it was warm enough that the mosquitoes were out. Jen and I have already fixed up our kids as prom dates so when Jordis and Arjun were voluntarily hanging out we had to take a picture.

Yesterday we took a little road trip. There's a park the next county over that I discovered as an adult and always vowed I'd take my kids to someday. It's about an hour from our house, but gas is below $3/gallon right now and the weather was really nice, so we decided to take a chance and head that way. The kids had a really great time checking out the huge wooden playset...





After playing at the park we went up the road to the local ice cream shop in the city of Granville. There's nothing special, really, about this place. They serve Velvet Ice Cream, which I can buy at the store, and they've decorated with black and white marble and pink walls, two things I really can't stand. But it's an old-time parlor which the kids have never seen, so we thought it'd be a nice treat. We even let Xander have dairy products, just to see if the infraction would cause any problems.
We got some grilled cheese sandwiches first, then ordered ice cream. The kids both wanted chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. We weren't sure the sprinkles would stay on if they got a cone, so the waitress offered to make them a clown sundae. They didn't really look like clowns but the kids didn't care.
Xander's our clean eater, but Jordis is an "in the moment" type of gal. She just does what it takes to get the job done.

It was a great weekend!