Corn maze. pumpkins. fair food. date.

Every year Kyle and I go to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins, shoot corn from the air cannons, ride the hayride and get lost in the corn maze. And since yesterday was Alabama’s off weekend – we thought it would be the best weekend to go!

It took awhile to get there because Kyle took his sweet time getting ready {he got distracted by video games and then his book} but when we finally did we were OFF!  We knew the corn maze started the day and we ended the day with pumpkins! But we got distracted by the corn air cannons and went there first. And... neither one of us hit the target {we blame the wind} so no one walked away with bragging rights this year!

We then ventured down to the corn maze. And we like this pumpkin patch – even though it is in the middle of nowhere - because of the corn mazes. We FLEW through the 3 corn mazes this year – mainly because I was complaining the whole time about being hot. I know. Me complain? Never.  I got us lost a few times because I kept insisting we needed to find the front {duh} and didn't account for dead ends.

When we got out of the corn mazes we were supposed to hop on the hayride {there is order and structure to the pumpkin patch trip} but they were not happening because of the pig races.  We didn’t get to see the pig races last year so we wanted to see what all the fuss was about. and i have to admit, it was so cute. 4 pigs racing around a track, jumping into a trough of water for a swim ... we definitely we not in Atlanta anymore. But it was cute and entertaining.

The green pig won 2 out of the 3 races.  Once that fun was over we went to the hayride and it was full. So we decided to wait for the next ride. And then the next ride was going to be a “trial” ride {empty} to see if they discovered a better route. And knowing we would have to wait 30 more minutes, we decided to call it a day.

We picked out pumpkins because leaving and when I spotted my pumpkin it was such a mission to get it i lost a shoe. My eye catching pumpkins is a 16 pounder. Kyle’s weighs 29 pounds. And I broke my own rule of not getting a pumpkin you cannot carry. It started to get heavy as we were walking to the car.  {totally forgot to get pumpkin holding pictures!}

But what I learned at the pumpkin patch is that my husband LOVES fair food. He wanted a hot dog and a hamburger and a bbq sandwich and fries and a funnel cake and kettle corn .. but i only let him have kettle corn, fries, a bbq sandwich and we split a funnel cake. We also realized that two 20-somethings are really out of place at a pumpkin patch without kids. oh well.

:: foto friday :: 2011–Our Year. The Recap.

I saw this floating around on different blogs last year so I wanted to steal it and do it here.  This year has FLOWN by.  Even though wedding planning was a big part of this year, we tried our best to mix in things that we’re unrelated to wedding planning and just enjoy each other’s company.  I tried to include pictures as much as I could…. but Kyle hates cameras and is not photogenic so it made it harder than I thought.

January:  Um…. I am not so sure if we really did anything in January other than house hunt and look at 4 million houses and decide to not move into a house with a pool (which I regretted once the southern summers came), we packed to move, played the Wii, and watched Auburn unfortunately win the National Championship. 

February:  We moved into our 1st house.  Yeah… it is a rental house, but it is still our 1st house.  It has a great big backyard for our dog, with doggie doors so Mulligan can come and go as he pleases and it feel great to have so much space and not be on top of each other.  Our neighbors are nice (even though they’re Auburn fans) and the neighborhood is nice and quiet which is a good change for living right off of Peachtree.  We signed a 2 year lease so it is a good thing we like it. HA!

March:  I got my wedding dress and probably kept it on for close to 45 minutes.  I love it.  It is gorgeous and in 3 months everyone gets to see it.  YAY!  It has the vintage, romantic feel that I wanted, but it has a touch of youngness to it.  I ended up getting a veil since my mom wanted it, but that is fine.  I plan on ditching it right after pictures and only wearing it in some pictures.

We also celebrated our “365 days till we’re married” day.  And we of course went to Medieval Times because we (or me) love that place and because that is where we got engaged.  Once again, our knight lost. We always have the yellow knight and he always loses.  What a let down.  We kind of talked the whole way through because if you have seen it once you have seen it a million times, it does not change. So we have decided to not go back for a few years or until we have kids old enough to go and appreciate it.

April:   ….I cannot think of anything we did in April. (Yeah… I started this midway though the year – that is why January and April are LAME!!)  OH – we did get a minister.  That is exciting right?! 

May:  Kyle and I LOVE Zac Brown and I had always said that I would love to see him in concert.  Well, I was given the opportunity to go see him and sit in a VIP box from one of our vendors.  We went with 2 other couples from my office.  We of course had a good time, but it was a total bummer that we had to leave early.  Note to self: once we have kids and go out with friends who are kidless, don’t suggest to go home early… the kidless couple won’t want to bow out early, but they will. =)

Kyle and I also took a trip to Tuscaloosa to help with tornado relief efforts.  We helped with the animal shelter and sorted donations in a warehouse/distribution center.  Though we felt like we did a lot and accomplished a lot… in the grand scheme of things, I feel like we did very little.  It was a great trip and a great experience.  That town needs a lot of support and help and will need it for awhile.  I hope the volunteers continue to flow in.

Oh. And we started our wedding registry at Crate and Barrel.  Kyle acted like a child because he got bored and I realized that registering for wedding gifts is a lot more overwhelming than I thought it would be.  Plus it is kind of weird asking for SO many things.

June:  Kyle and I got dressed up all fancy schmancy and went to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Man and Woman of the Year Gala. It was fun to get dressed up and go to a big charity function to support a cause that means a lot to me …. and we were celebrating my friend Mitzi being in remission for 10 years!  YEAH!  We participated in the silent auction (and didn’t win anything), people watched, and I learned that the dress I chose for my bridesmaid can be worn again.  There were about 4+ girls in the black version of it. 

We also continued registering for wedding gifts.  This time at Target.  It was chaotic and Kyle as on horrible behavior so he became uninvited for future wedding registering events.  Rawr. But we registered for a lot of useful things and things that will be much needed.  And I really hope someone gets me the Magic Bullet {{update :: i got it for christmas}}.

AND!!  We sent our save the dates out to all our wedding guests (with a little bit of panicking thanks to them being magnets and mailboxes being metal). This was a total accomplishment since we (well, I) had been dragging my feet on them since I couldn’t decide on what picture to use. I knew which save the date I wanted, but I couldn’t decided on a picture. But, with Kyle’s help I made a decision they came in, and they got mailed out.  When they came in the mail I was so so so excited with the final product and so excited to send them out to our guests that I sent them out a month early!  Whoops! And I was really excited about the custom cupcake stamps and the personalized Kyle and Barbie return address stamp. I was so excited to hear the positive feedback from so many of our guests (and to know they were not stuck in USPS purgatory)! We hope everyone liked them and that they’re still on your refrigerator!

July:  We took a REAL quick trip home to Northern Virginia to see Kyle’s parents and mine.  It was a good break from reality and it was good to see Kyle’s parents since we rarely get to see them.  Lots of chatter about wedding decisions – didn’t share my dress with them – and the wedding in general.  I got to go run Burke Lake which could be one of my favorite running spots.

We spent part of a Sunday knocking more things off our knot.com “to do list” – my parents came down from Northern Virginia and we all headed to the venue for a “Bridal Extravaganza” to taste food and cake.  We also headed back to McDonough for some major wedding planning and decision making. 

August:  Kyle brought home a cute little dog that had been abandoned by its parents (car drove into neighborhood. neighbors heard a bark. saw car drive off. spotted new dog. sad. some people do not deserve pets) one Monday and left the decision to ME on what to do with her.  I could not put her at animal control knowing her family was not looking for her and knowing that in 5 days she would be put to sleep so we got our 1st and only foster dog and named her Kennesaw (after where Kyle got her). I of course got super attached and cried for hours when I learned that she was finding her furever home and was a hot mess the day I had to hand her over to her new mom.   But not even 24 hours later I got a call telling me that Kennesaw was not going to work out & that she was not getting along with the cats on the farm; therefore, she would have to come back to Atlanta.  Kyle and I just decided to just keep her and make her a permanent member of our family because I couldn’t handle the handing her over again and we both didn’t want to put her through the adoption events again.  So… as of August 30th we are a 2 dog house! =) 

September:  What a lazy lazy month for us.  We really just enjoyed each other’s company, got on each other’s last nerve, tried to get used to having 2 dogs, and watching a lot of football.  It was kind of nice to not really have anything on the schedule, but the month somehow still flew right by.

So many wedding details came together – welcome bags ordered and came to my house.  All the apothecary jars for the candy buffet were bought.  Candy was starting to collect.  Match books bought.  Koozies bought and delivered.  Wedding gift for Mom chosen. Wedding day gift for Kyle chosen. Bridesmaid’s gifts completed. Invitations selected.  September was a REALLY successful wedding planning month.

October:  My good good friend and one of my bridesmaids got married in early October at a gorgeous gorgeous church and the Fabulous FOX Theater here in Atlanta.  I was SO excited to be part of Chrissy’s big day.  She looked fabulous and the wedding was amazing and of course I cried when her dad handed her off to Matt.  Chrissy seriously has the nicest friends and Kyle and I buddied off with another engaged couple.  Kyle and I had a great time dancing and laughing at people and we realized that this is our last wedding until ours. By 11:00 we were EXHAUSTED so I can only imagine how tired we will be on our wedding day.  But…. Yay for Chrissy & Matt – we wish them many years of happiness!!

I also wanted to find a pumpkin patch, so we could carve pumpkins for our house and because when living in Virginia we went to a pumpkin patch and had a lot of fun.  Well, I found one down in McDonough and it was GREAT! It had an awesome corn maze that Kyle ruined the fun in (kidding. kinda) by telling me that you take all right turns. At first we were rock paper scissoring it at each turn to decide who chose the next turn, but since I dressed like “fall” in a sweater and boots I was getting hot. We rode the hayride and went down the slide and the best part was the corn cannons when you had to shoot corn out of a cannon. I hit the target and Kyle did not, so I had fun taunting him and yelling Champion! =D And we of course got 2 awesome pumpkins to carve!

November:  November was rather uneventful.  We went home, of course, for Thanksgiving to Northern Virginia. It was a quick trip as always, but it was sentimental for me because I knew next year I wouldn’t be at Thanksgiving dinner with my family.  you never realize how much your family means to you and how much you love them until you have to think about not doing a holiday with them.  It was the 1st trip home with both the dogs and it was really not that bad.

December: We celebrated our 1st Christmas in our house! And even thought it is just our rental house it is / was so nice to not have our whole living room taken up by a tree.  We of course celebrated our Christmas early (which is going to be weird not doing next year) and then we headed home to Virginia for the holidays.  This was our last holiday apart so it was all just bittersweet.  December was pretty boring as well, but we enjoyed wrapping the presents and decorating our house. 

Ok… I had planned for this to be cliff notes, but it was pretty much a play by play of our year (well, what I could remember of it before I started this in may). next year will be better. promise.

non wedding related: the pumpkin patch

Kyle and I are kids at heart.  Or maybe I am and Kyle just comes along for the ride. But Kyle and I had a “date day” this past Sunday and it was just fun to get out of the house and hang out with each other.

Since we were “pumpkin patching” I decided we would dress for fall… which ended up being a bad idea since it was hotter than I thought it would be.  Anyways…. We headed down to McDonough to go to an awesome pumpkin patch that I found online.  We started with lunch at Logan’s Roadhouse – which by the way, is not very good, it was WAY better when we worked there.  And then we headed to the pumpkin patch.  And I had a to-do list.  I kept telling Kyle that it was all about the corn maze, the slide, the hayride and getting pumpkins.

So we got to the pumpkin patch and honestly it was overwhelming.  Seriously if you have kids in Atlanta that is the pumpkin patch to go to.  There was SO much to do.  There were pig races and bouncy things and a cow train and go carts and a corn maze and corn cannons and a hayride and really, I could keep going.  We headed toward the corn maze first.  And got distracted by the slide. =D

The corn maze had 3 mazes (easy.medium.hard) and we did all three.  The hard one was harder and it was funny because you could tell parents just wanted to get out of the maze.  At one point we ran into a dead end and turned around and saw 3 or so families and all the parents go “why are you turning around” …. and I am pretty sure those 3 families then just cut through the corn.  We ended up finding the exit – Kyle decided to tell me that you just have to take all right turns and made the corn maze unfun, but that is Kyle’s favorite thing to do – burst the fun bubble.

From there we went on the fastest and most uneventful hayride in the history of hayrides.  But as we were waiting Kyle told me that he wanted to shoot the corn cannons.  I of course told him that we could and that we would and when the hayride was over – we headed straight there.  No lie, I was a little scared but it ended up being fun.  And do you know what the best part was?  I hit the target and Kyle did not! =D  There is nothing like being a girl, firing an air cannon with a corn on the cob stuck in it and actually aiming it correctly and hitting the target when your husband to be didn’t hit it!!  And I won us a free soda for the car ride home.

We then headed to the pumpkin part to pick out our pumpkins and we got two really good ones that I cannot wait to carve.  One would think that this was an expensive day but out two huge pumpkins were only $21.50 and it cost $24 total to get in … but when you think that we were there for 3 hours and did not do everything that is a pretty good deal.

But the most important part…. we had fun.  Exhausted.  But had fun!  =D