A REAL Fall Weekend

Oh Hi there Monday....nice to see you again...NOT.  Apparently I was subconsciously not ready to face Monday either because I somehow turned off both alarms without realizing it and woke up at 6AM this morning....perfect (I am supposed to leave the house at 6:15AM).  OOPS!  Needless to say it was a ponytail day for me.

I guess I was still trying to recover from a jam-packed weekend!  Since Eric had plans to camp where they were hunting this weekend I figured I'd just hang out with the pups....boy was I wrong!

Friday I had basketball practice until 5PM, and since we let the girls out early I decided I would run home to let the pups out and head to Montgomery for the football game since I am not going to be able to go to this week's game. Plus the game was in just Montgomery and I figured I'd be home by 10PM.  I walked up to the field just in time to hear the National Anthem, which was followed by this announcement: 

"Ladies and Gentlemen please stand by.  The game is going to be delayed because we do not have a referee crew.

We will let you know when we have figured something out"  

Um excuse me?  No referees?  How does that happen?  This was a region game so it was not scheduled at the last minute. So we waited.  About 7:45 (45 minutes after the game should have started) we had another annoucement: 

"Ladies and Gentlemen we have found a crew.  They are heading this way from Clanton.  

The game will begin as soon as they arrive."

Clanton is 45 minutes away from Montgomery. The game FINALLY got underway at 8:30PM, and THS came away with another win and I was on my way back home at 11PM...arg. Eric did not get home until after 1AM.  He said that apparently a crew was never scheduled for the game...awesome.  

Saturday morning Eric was up and out of the house by 9AM to head to the woods.  I decided to call my SIL and see if she wanted to head to Trade Day.  It's an annual Arts and Crafts Fair in the town we live in.  We went, but were not too impressed.  THere was nothing too spectacular and it seemed a lot smaller than it was in the past.  We spent maybe 20 mins walking the entire block where it was and left. 

On the way back to the car, I remembered reading about another fall festival going on in our area.  Neither of us had ever been and were not sure exactly how to get there, but we figured if we got on the highway that went to that town we were bound to find it.  Boy did we.  About 25 minutes down the road we started seeing cars parked on the side of the road and then traffic came to a standstill.  We decided our best bet would be to go ahead and park and hoof it.  About a mile up the road we arrived at Syrup Sopping Day.  Yes in Alabama there is a town called Loachapoka that has an annual festival called Syrup Sopping Day.  Their website says that this sleepy town of about 135's population nears 20,000 on this day every year. I believe it.  There were booths with anything and everything you could imagine--there were 2 booths selling bed sheets, who does that?!--and OH the FOOD!  

1. Making the Sugar Cane Syrup.  It was bubbling like crazy!

2. Sugar Canes for syrup.

3. The Dinky Doughnut Machine....it was pretty cool.

4.  Dinky Doughnuts....AKA our lunch which we ate with the wine we got from the wine tasting booth =)

5. Kettle Corn....oh glorious Kettle Corn! 

Saturday night I headed out to the woods to meet up with Eric and our friends at the campsite for dinner!  We had a big bonfire.  The boys cooked some deer tenderloin and some burgers.  And we HAD to have S'MORES of course!

It was a little chilly but the fire kept up nice and warm.  One of the girls brought her guitar and sang some Pistol Annie's tunes for us.  It was an absolutely PERFECT fall evening! 

It took us a few tried to get it right. 

Sunday Eric came home for about 10 mins before he had to run off to film/practice.  They play on Thursday night this week so they had to double up on Sunday.  I managed to finish up my fall decorating and purchased our pumpkins.  The hard part is going to be finding time between now and Halloween to carve them.

Yes we feed Peanut in the living room because his fat self will try to eat Hawk's food, too.

Eric decided to head back to the woods on Sunday after practice and while I was finishing up dinner he called to say that he got his 1st deer of the season!  It was just a doe, but this should keep the hunter in him satisfied for a week or 2 so he won't want to go back every night! =)