falling in NC

a little bit of fall here...

nate had a fall break, but really that meant it was girls week while he went on duke networking trips to seattle and new york city. a box of see's candy made up for the fact that he got to hang out with my parents while i was a single parent. my dark chocolate-loving father raised me right.  

 pumpkin patching -- an excuse to wear BOOTS of course. S lives in these pink boots

i took sagie to the north carolina state fair, where the food is all fried (minus our fave roasted corn) and rides are ridiculously pricey. we tasted fried red velvet oreos and pumpkin spice funnel cake. delicious, but i did feel like my arteries were slowly being clogged.

 sage shrieked, "tooooo scary!" down the giant slide, so we followed the traumatic experience up with a nice carousel ride.

 nate returned just in time to join us at the fuqua families pumpkin farm day. duke has a great network and puts on lots of fun events for families, including feeding us dinner every friday.

 pumpkins were small and scarce this year, but we didn't mind at all.

 a tractor ride through the corn fields

and these gorgeous sunsets have been gracing our street most evenings. 

here's to hoping this beautiful fall stretches out just a liiiiittle bit longer before the grass dies and everything turns brown.

suburban diaries: blue ridge parkway

we rented a sleek, black suburban for another adventure with matt and belize. right after nate's final exam on a saturday morning, we packed up the kids and snacks galore and headed west to asheville, north carolina. more specifically, we headed to the blue ridge parkway. besides being a national parkway that runs through virginia and north carolina, this scenic road is famous for its stunning fall foliage. so we went on a drive to go on a drive.

and it lived up to the hype. 

the kids were pretty good about all that driving though. they ran around the little viewpoints we stopped at and crunched leaves to their hearts' content.

i really can't find my camera battery charger, so we're sticking with the iphone these days.

while i often think of all the festivals and events that i love going on in singapore, i quickly forgot it all as we wound our way up the mountains through tunnels and forests of yellow and copper-colored leaves.
fall is so beautiful!
i couldn't even capture all the reds and deep orange forests we drove through.

north carolina scored major points on this road trip.

matt carefully planned out our driving loop, dropping us into asheville at the end. we ate dinner at asheville brewery & pizza company, and i decided i really need to come back here and explore some more.

halloween in the burbs

halloween isn't my thing. i'm not creative when it comes to costumes (although i was a cardboard, gold-painted sun once upon a time), the feel of pumpkin guts makes me shudder, and i'd rather invest my time in christmas. but, i'll admit that this halloween was pretty perfect: mild autumn weather, a big dinner with friends beforehand, then running around our little street with a crew of kids under 5.

we borrowed a darling lady bug costume, and sage's life was complete when i put some "nake-up" on her. at the end of the night, she kept exclaiming, "i yike trick or treats, mama!" she loved tasting her loot, but quickly forgot about it the next day.

two years old is just the best sometimes. i love this little bug!