My favorite time of the year!

Ahhh.... I love fall and the smell of crisp fresh cold air that starts to circulate around this time. It smells like pumpkins and apple spice mixed with fresh school books.
Gabe and I kicked off the season with apple picking in Oak glen a few weeks ago. I love the picturesque little farms with names like "willow brook " or "Riley's farm". They sound so homey and countrified. Of course sprinkled among cute farms were also farms with less cute names that killed my romantic daydreaming; farms with names like "Los rios rancho". They just didn't have that quaint ring to it. I wanna go to a farm and fantasize that there is some old lady in the farmhouse hand churning butter, baking pies and scrapbooking.
Either way the day was fun and the weather was perfect. We only picked a handful of apples but we gorged ourselves on apple cider donuts from snow line orchard and later regrettably feasted on what can only be described as fair food meets diner food. We spent a good deal of time exploring shops and searching for the perfect little eatery with the best home made pies. What we inevitably found was something akin to Lake arrowheads "Santas Village" except toned down 10 degrees and lacking the whole Santa motif. We arrived at Apple Annie's Bakery and restaurant only to get ourselves lost trying to find it on the map. After much wandering we stumbled aross a makeshift fair set up to look like a snowy mountain village complete with vendors selling dream catchers and geodes as well as a walk through petting zoo consisting mostly of ducks. A hand-painted sign advertised pony rides on tired, sedated looking little horses. We considered heading into the little fair but our tummies were pushing us towards food so after a little hike and several blisters on my heels (I wore the stupidest shoes) we were greeted by the fabled bakery and a long line of ravenous pie consumers.
    After glancing at the menu and being let down by iceberg cobb salad and pictures of unlovingly made sandwiches and various fried foods I played it safe and stuck with a salad. No one wants a tummy attack on a 2 hour ride home. Gabe ordered the grilled cheese and fries which was served on 1 inch thick bread slices of buttery cheesy, goodness. He sickened himself to say the least as I happily devoured my grease free salad.

We plan to return close to thanksgiving so I can flex my old lady pie making skillz. Oak glen is a place that demands to be explored. We only touched on a few areas on the map but we missed out on an animal museum/ indoor zoo thing and the schoolhouse museum.

Below are some pics from our adventure!!..I got lots of Gabe stuffing his face :)

We wandered about halfway into this secret garden-esque entrance but it got quite marshy and my ill fitting sandals were not equipped for a hike. There's nothing as thrilling as trespassing though.

The grilled cheese sandwich..extra grease

we each got a sack of  one dozen mini apple cider donuts and apple cider to drink. We were on sugar highs and well...gabe loves his cinnamon.

so gross yet so delicious!

Zombie Giraffes and Pumpkin Eating Dinosaurs

Not uncommon for this time of year, I recently made a trip to a pumpkin patch to fetch a large gourd for my carving pleasure. Back home I'm use to visiting a concrete lot with several haystacks festively strewn about or making a trip to my local Vons grocers. There are pretty much all the same options in Chicago, but the greater Midwest is littered with legitimate family farms offering an authentic rustic experience...for a price. This year I was fortunate enough to secure a car ride to one of these family farm pumpkin patches known for their apple cider donuts. So on a rainy Saturday (of all the luck) we set off on our hour long travel to the farm.

Once we arrived we sopped through the muddy grass parking lot and through the country clutter store filled with all the painted wooden lawn signs you could hope for. The farm itself was pretty huge. To capitalize on the holiday crowds, the owners built an area called animal land that offered such attractions as pig races, a petting zoo, and a pumpkin eating dinosaur. Not wanting to refuse a pumpkin eating dino, we decided to fork out the $10 each to explore animal land. The petting zoo was pretty solid. It was filled with all your standard zoo-like animals plus a surprising amount of critters I have never even seen. The dirty feeling you get from gawking at animals in captivity was masked by the amount of dirty faced children running around unsupervised . The piggy races were complete with a pig punned comedy show. In the middle of animal land was a large orange crane like contraption wrapped fashioned to look mildly like an armless T-Rex. Every ten minutes this dinosaur would come to life, roar, pick up a rotting pumpkin with slow Parkinsonian like jerks, smash the pumpkin, and belch (much to the delight of the chillun-folk). I was hoping for a pumpkin explosion, but this Dino didn't have much jaw strength as it simply smushed it and let it dribble out of its mouth. It would do this three times and fall back asleep. The hilarity of watching the crowds gather around to watch the event was well worth it. Only in the midwest! My favorite part of animal land though was the two giraffes that we got to feed with our $3 cup-o-carrots.

Not wishing to miss anything, we tromped ankle deep in mud through corn and haystack mazes before heading to the patch. I ended up picking a pumpkin only a mother could love, riddled with scars and warts. Despite having a few children bully my pumpkin selection, I feel I made the right choice.

Changing of seasons

 

This weekend confirmed it. The weather said it is now fall and there is no turning back. Don’t get me wrong, living in a city where you can actually experience what it feels like to have seasons is lovely. I enjoy stepping out in scarves not just because they can be paired nicely with my outfit and truly appreciate the warm seasonal beverages while I walk in the brisk air …and all that pretty sounding stuff.  However, this is also the first indication that it will get frigidly cold soon and will likely be so for the next six months. Given this inevitability, it was time to go into storage to retrieve the winter like clothing items that I gladly stowed away when we first got back up to 60 degrees last spring. With some sadness, I filled a bag or two of fun light dresses, bathing suits, and other summery fare. Another interesting part of living in a place with seasons…and perhaps living in a place where I get to pay a large amount of money for a shoebox of a living space…is the storing away of seasonal clothing. I do enjoy being able to dump out a bag of winter clothes to the benefit of finding a bunch of items that I had completely forgot I owned, albeit mostly trendy pieces that are no longer as relevant.

The Chicago marathon also happened this Sunday and the route actually encircles the area I live in. I got inspired to wake up early and walk alongside the runner path. After being here five years, this is the first year that I have actually been up and about to view the event. I am typically hiding under sheets completely oblivious and/or hung over. As I was walking the path, I found myself feeling emotional about the whole thing. I was thinking of the huge accomplishment of the dozens upon dozens of people running ahead of me. I noticed myself getting choked up when I saw several women in their 60s pass me. I thought how amazing it was that these women were still doing it as I watched them all run off the track, pull down their leggings and pop a squat in the middle of a wide-open area of grass. After that, I noticed the dismaying amount of people, young old, man, woman alike pulling off to do their business. Kinda took away from the whole decorum of the moment. Regardless of the lack of shame, I think I am going to sign up for another 5k again for next month to remind myself that I hate running again.

*Monica