parks, pumpkins and 2 wet dogs

Hello everyone!

I had a lovely fall weekend. Friday night I was not feeling well still so I took it pretty easy. I went over to Elaine & Gina's for dinner which was wonderful as always. After dinner a couple of Gina's friends came over to go out for the night. They invited me along but I decided to go home instead. At home I made a bunch of cards and watched a Dave Chappelle stand-up that I'd gotten from Netflix. So hilarious! After that I watched Alison Krauss on Austin City Limits then fell asleep on the sofa.

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful fall day out. It was sunny and warm. I got up early and left the house with the camera. First I went to Laurelhurst Park. I took lots of pictures of the leaves changing color. They looked especially great against the perfectly blue sky. I walked all around the park looking at the ducks in the pond and the huge gorgeous houses that surround the park. From there I went up to Mt Tabor where I walked around the lower reservoir and took some photos. I then went up to the upper reservoir and walked around. It really was spectacular outside!

In the afternoon I went to meet Elaine and Gina as we had plans to go to a pumpkin patch on Sauvie Island. Elaine had to work and Gina and I decided that the Island was going to be overrun with people so we changed our plans. We stopped by Gina's parents' house and talked with them for awhile. Gina borrowed a 35mm camera from them to start using in addition to the digital cameras. We then drove down to Uncle Paul's Produce Market on Hawthorne. We got 4 pumpkins, some tangelos and honey tangerines, jalapenos and some beets. The market is having a contest for the biggest zucchini. There were some HUGE zucchini there!

We loaded the pumpkins into the car then went up the street to Coffee People. Both Elaine & Gina have raved about their fresh banana milkshakes. Gina & I shared one and it was so yummy! We got some coffee too then went back to Gina's house. Elaine made dinner of squash curry soup and the world's best tuna melts. After dinner a bunch of us carved pumpkins. John paid me $6 to clean out his pumpkin guts because he doesn't like to do it while Elaine talked Adam into carving her pumpkin that she had cleaned out already. She doesn't like the carving part. Elaine cooked up the seeds by deep frying them in olive oil infused with fresh garlic and jalapenos. It was time consuming but they sure were good. We all spent the rest of the night with greasy, salt fingers from constantly eating the pumpkin seeds!

A couple of Dave's friends came over and a group of us played Shanghai Rummy. We've all been wanting to play as it's been awhile. It was tons of fun and we had wild cards for the first time which made the game go a lot faster. Sometimes our Shanghai games would go on forever! It was great to play it again!

Sunday was gray and a little drizzly outside. I read the paper and then talked on the phone with Nandita for a while. I then went over to Gina's house and we loaded up the dogs into her car. We went to the Columbia River. Riley LOVES fetching sticks from the water and Daisy just loves sniffing everything. Gina threw many a stick for Riley and he barked and barked for her to throw some more. From there we took them to a dog washing place where I washed Daisy and Gina washed Riley. Man did they need the bath! They both lost tons of fur and now smell and feel wonderful! We took the dogs back home and ate some dinner and watched some tv. Gina made the horrible mistake of opening the Halloween candy. Too much chocolate! I went home and read for awhile before going to sleep.

So that was my weekend. I only have my early Saturday pictures with me so I'll post more photos in the next few days. Please let me know how you are and what you're doing!

xoxo,
carolyn