Football and Fresh Apples

Monkey really enjoyed half-time!

Last night was my alma mater's homecoming football game. Since my brother-in-law is currently a senior there, Monkey and I joined him at the game. We had so much fun! I dressed Monkey up in her Driller blue and white, and wore the (now too-big) sweatshirt I've had since my senior year (seven years ago!). Monkey slept through most of her first football game, even though we sat right next to the band. It also felt really good to be back on campus, enjoying a nice fall night with hundreds of other Drillers and Driller alumni. Of course our boys won; they beat the visiting Titans 42-20. It was a really great game.

After all the excitement last night, Monkey and I slept in until 11:30 this morning! We were exhausted! After taking Daddy to work, though, we headed up the mountain to Tehachapi (home of the loop) and joined my aunt and cousin for an afternoon of fall festivities.

First off was a visit to my cousin's high school, where they were having a fundraiser for all the school clubs. We went to just look around and maybe get a couple snacks, just to show some love for the clubs. We ended up with 52 pumpkins. What!? So yeah, my aunt is a kindergarten teacher in a really low-income school district and when the principal of my cousin's school announced that all large pumpkins were now $2 and small pumpkins were $.50, my aunt thought, "Hey, my kids would love to have Halloween pumpkins of their own...;" so she bought 24, one for each of her students.

Mommy just couldn't resist the pumpkin pictures!

Then she thought, "I bet Mr. Brown's students would love pumpkins, too!" *Mr. Brown teaches the morning kindergarten class; my aunt teaches the afternoon class.* So she just bought the rest of the pumpkins. So at the end of the day, I had 25 pumpkins in my trunk and my uncle had to come into town to get the rest. While we were waiting for him to get to the school, I gave in to the urge to take some more pumpkin pictures of Monkey (my aunt bought her a pumpkin, too, so now I don't have a valid reason to go to a pumpkin patch).

Finally, we got to go apple picking! We weren't there very long, since it was starting to get late and Monkey was getting hungry, but I did get a ton of fresh apples. I'm going to attempt to make an apple pie this week; if it turns out edible, I'll post the recipe I use, along with a bunch of pictures.

Mommy and Monkey picking apples

We've had a wonderful autumn experience these last two days! The air has just been wonderfully crisp (not clean, though, because ... well, it's never clean here) and cool. The sky has that beautiful deep blue to it and it's been just gorgeous!