APPLES

Apple season is in full force in our house! After grabbing some apples from the local orchard I dove head first into all things apples. Applesauce, apple pies, apple tarts, coffee cake, and salads. It is so fun to live nearby to so many local fruit orchards and I am excited to be learning so much about preparing new things.

Baking does not come naturally to me (it is too precise) but I have been trying new cookies, cakes, and cupcakes all month trying to perfect the art of baked goods! I’ll keep you posted on my progress as the tutorials continue.
My first homemade applesauce turned out pretty good, just a bit thick....next time I won't cook it quite so long and it will be less like apple butter :)

The most recent addition to my baking endeavors has been a new cake plate from the Pottery Barn (insert angels singing). The cake plate matches our dishes and I bought it with a PB gift card my mom gave me for my birthday (she truly does know the way to her daughter’s heart)!

3 MONTHS OLD

Dear Mac,
You are growing so quickly—every day you look more and more like a real dog! You have come so far and each week we laugh at your “latest” interest. You have gotten so good at playing catch, and recently you have actually been bringing the ball or the stick back to us! You love your tennis ball, basketball and raccoon the most! You are no longer afraid of squeaky toys—you actually like to squeak it yourself. You are content to play in the backyard by yourself for periods of time and you LOVE to jump on the couch much to my dismay!

You love cheese, peanut butter and ice…and you are ecstatic when we accidentally drop a pretzel on the ground. You go potty on command and you never have accidents in the house anymore. Your favorite place to sleep during the day is in the entryway against the wall and at night you sleep soundly in your kennel!

You love the car and you are getting better every day at walking on the leash. The latest accomplishment to add to your list is walking for longer than 10 minutes without a whimper!

You are sweet and loving and you bring joy to our lives!

HARMONY'S VISIT

We have been so lucky to have harmony (my college roommate) here for a week. If she didn’t believe me before, she soon learned that there is NOT MUCH GOING ON in Wichita Falls! But we managed to have a lovely visit filled with Fort Worth, coffee, cocktails, shopping, apple orchards, local dive bars, Dallas, and SUN! Being from Seattle, Harmony was all too happy to enjoy the 80-degree weather we have been having…so we spent many afternoons relaxing in the sun! We are so blessed to have such an amazing friend and we are so glad that we got to show her our new Texas life!

Lunch in Fort Worth after we picked her up at the airport.

The fields of Texas

The Parkway Grill, our neighborhood dive bar.

Everything is bigger in Texas (and cheaper...only $4.50 for a beer this size)!

A night on the town in Dallas

A MANTEL TO MARK THE TIME...

I have always loved great mantels and now I have one of my own! What a pleasure it is to be able to decorate a bit for the holidays and to pass the year with festive things that evoke joy. Our wedding picture is a staple on the mantel because it is our favorite photo (yes, the flask is included in that statement) and it sums up our marriage...but as for everything else...I can’t wait to mark the time that we live in this home with our favorite decorations during the holidays.

WICHITA FALLS SUPPER CLUB

We are so excited that last month we joined forces with a few couples from David’s office and started the Wichita Falls Supper Club. Each month a new person hosts dinner and makes the main dish…then the other people bring a dish to share. The first one was at our house so we chose the theme “where we come from” and each person created a dish from their home state.

We provided a salmon dish (a wonderful recipe from my fantastic in-laws) as well as hazelnut rice pilaf. We also created a blackberry martini as a salute to the northwest berry industry. The others brought homemade pita chips and guacamole (San Diego) and gumbo (Charleston) and for our dessert I made individual peach tarts with peaches from Wichita Falls. It was a great night and we can’t wait for Italian Night in October!

OUR TEXAS HOME

Amazing that I have been so slow in getting these photos up but here are a few pics of our house. Amazingly enough the back rooms still need the artwork put on the walls, but I haven’t figured out exactly what I want to do with those yet. It’s always nice to have a project to work on! Enjoy seeing our little home and know that you are always welcome to join us here in Texas to experience our home in person!

The living room windows look out towards the street and the front door is to the right of this photo.

We love our fantastic fireplace! Please don't judge us that the top wedding photo is neither in a frame or hung...I have faith it will happen soon!

The dining room. The window looks out into the backyard and you can see the door into the kitchen is to the left.

Our bedroom.

Our bathroom...complete with the thrift store chair that I painted and "antiqued" I just need to find the perfect pillow case sham to cover the perfect sized pillow form that I have...there is always something to do isn't there?

The guest bedroom. Don't mind the vacuum handle which made its way into the corner of the photo....makes a pretty classy door stop doesn't it?

The guest bathroom.

One wall of the office. This is a PERFECT cozy place to read! The trunk is from David's dad. It was his great-great grandmother's trunk and her name was...ELIZABETH. I love the trunk and I love that she and I share a name--it was meant to be in our home all along!

A VISIT FROM AUNT TERI

David and I were so blessed to welcome our Aunt Teri for a few days. She is such a lovely woman and it was fantastic to have a guest in our home! We enjoyed taking the dog for walks, touring the base, and sharing meals over long conversations and lots of laughs. What a fantastic gift to have a piece of home come here to Texas.

Disclaimer—I took a ton of great photos and while looking through them on the camera…I DELETED THEM :( here is the one photo I have as we said goodbye and sent Teri back to Seattle. She'll just have to come again so that we can capture new pictures, and I promise I won't delete them!

THE WICHITA MOUNTAINS

A few weekends ago the September weather was gorgeous so we decided to take a drive up into the Wichita Mountains. We loaded McCovey into the back of the car and enjoyed the 90min drive to the Wichita Wildlife Refuge. We were enchanted with the bison and elk as well as the creeks and hiking trails. What a lovely day we had and McCovey even put his feet in the nearby lake—that was a big adventure for the little boy who does not like new things!