Sorry to be all stereotypically exuberant about fall, but this is seriously the best time of the year.  The weather is perfect, trees everywhere are the most striking colors of yellow, orange and red and it feels so right to be eating/baking all the comfort foods.  What could be better?  Anyway, I planned on writing this post “weekend highlights” style, but turns out the whole weekend was a highlight!

Starting with a mix of perfect timing and luck at Friday night dinner.  And by that, I mean nabbing that incredible parking spot, seeing two empty seats at the bar, hearing the bartender yell “who wants free beer?!” and only waiting 20 minutes for a table when you were quoted an hour and a half.  We hit up Vine Street Pub because we hadn’t been in so long and the fresh hop and Date Night burger did not disappoint.

Saturday started with us sleeping in — which is apparently my body’s new favorite thing to do on the weekend and hey, I don’t hate it! — then taking ourselves to Weathervane Café for coffee and breakfast.  I’ll be real and admit what really drew me in was the pumpkin spice pop tart I’d seen them post a picture of earlier in the week.  I couldn’t get it out of my head.  And it was just as good as it looked.

A lot happened that afternoon, including beer supply purchasing, grocery shopping, new show binging (UM why did no one tell me how funny You’re the Worst is?!) and Rye IPA brewing but most importantly… DONUT MAKING!!!!  We went the cake donut route because slightly crispy exteriors and wonderfully soft insides are where it’s at.  I handled the dough-making/cutting, then Joey and I teamed up on the deep frying part and even though a few of the first ones were a bit doughy inside, the last few turned out awesome and tasted amazing!  I’m pretty excited.

Oh and we also made a trip to the urban pumpkin patch at Little Man’s plaza.   Where we discovered there were only large pumpkins (at $12 a pop!) left and the typical lengthy line for ice cream that we would’ve had to stand in to pay for those pumpkins.  PASS!  But you know what, we still went and walked around for a minute so I’m checking this one off on my Fall Bucket List 🙂

Lemon lentil soup and Terminator 2 for dinner.  Because sometimes I do eat things that aren’t mostly comprised of sugar and white flour.  I thought the soup was really good (though clearly not the most photogenic) but Joey claimed the lemon hurt his teeth.  Such a baby 🙂

Sunday morning breakfast with my family!  We had a full house, but full of coffee, French toast muffins, delicious casserole, puppies, cute kids, family and lots of hugs so it was the best kind of full.  I made those muffins up there and even though I totally forgot to grease the muffin tin, they turned out really good and everyone seemed to like them so thumbs up emoji.  Oh and before breakfast, I got up and went on my first run in a week and it felt amazing.  I’m weird and missed running.

After my brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew and Joey (who had football to go watch) left, the rest of us partook in some quiet coloring time.  Seriously, the five of us sat at the kitchen table for an hour coloring Disney scenes.  I can’t decide if that’s funny, weird or a combination of both.  My mom was unhappy with her choice of color for Sleeping Beauty’s shawl and decided she was over it, I guess.  I can’t decide if that’s funny, weird or a combination of both.

Post-coloring time, we all went to Whole Foods because they actually have a pretty good pumpkin selection there.  Side Note: there is an actual pumpkin patch down the street from my parents’ but it’s quite the scene on the weekends and I don’t think anyone had the energy to sit in that traffic.  Plus, WF has Warty Goblin pumpkins!!!  I totally got one and am just going to worry about squirrels eating it for the rest of the week.  P.S. Our Octoberfest brew turned out really good.  Check that gorgeous color!  Closed out the weekend with salad dinner, The Amazing Race and reading in bed.

In conclusion, DONUTS.