Pigskin

So Jeff and I finally got the chance to go to our first Florida State football game of the season. And it was just in time too, because it was the last home game of the year! My mother-in-law's boss had a couple of extra tickets, and he generously gave them to us, for free! So Saturday afternoon, we got dressed in our garnet and gold, and hopped on our bikes. We live less than two miles from the stadium, so it was perfect to ride our bikes down there, and avoid all the parking craziness. So that worked out perfectly.

The weather was pretty great, despite a few clouds. Our seats were up at the very top, but it they were actually pretty great! I enjoyed the view, and we had a great time watching the game from the stadium. It's just such a different experience than just being at home, watching it on the TV. Sitting in the stands with 84,000+ Seminoles, all cheering and screaming for our favorite team, is just so much more fun! Also, participating in "The Chop" and the fight song and all the other game day traditions are just wayyy better at Doak Campbell Stadium, rather than in your living room. Am I right?!

Anyways, we did other things this weekend, but all I have picture-wise is from the game, so we're going to leave it at that, and just do a photo dump from the game....

After the game, I didn't want to leave Prim at home alone any longer, so Jeff picked up Chinese food and grabbed "Bridesmaids" from Redbox, and we just vegged out on the couch all cuddled up together. We also saw "Thor" on Saturday morning (which was soo good - and thanks for that Mama!), and saw "We're The Millers" on Sunday at the cheap theater (which was so funny!)

After grocery shopping, I made potato soup for dinner on Sunday, and we watched quite a few hours of "Friends" throughout the whole weekend. (We started working our way through the series over the summer since Jeff hasn't seen it all, and we just started season six.) It was a nice couple of days, and now we only have a three-day work week - bring it on Thanksgiving! Yay, and Happy Monday!

Much Love,
Halie

Pitiful Sickie

Dear Random Sickness: You suck SO SO much. It's not a cold, it's not strep throat, I have no idea what it is... but you caused me to miss the Chris Tomlin concert last night, and now I can't go camping tonight with my Sunday school class. You make me angry!! Let's get outta here, OK? Because I really am a Pitiful Sickie :(

Dear Seminoles: Thanks for pulling ourselves together last night and avoiding an upset last night. Glad we won!

Dear Live with Kelly & Michael: I'm so glad I get to watch you this morning while I'm at home. I love love loved Regis & Kelly back in the day, and I've missed getting to watch you for quite some time now. So excited!

Dear $2 Tuesday at the Fair: Whoa man that was awesome! We didn't even know it was $2 Tuesday, so we lucked out, big time. Normal admission should be $7 a person, but we got in for $4 total!! Then we got to ride a few $2 rides as well. And even enjoy some $2 snacks. So much fun!

Dear The Ransomed: We're glad we got to come watch y'all play at the fair! Good job kids :)

Dear Fair: You truly are pretty from the top of a Ferris wheel. So many bright, pretty, twinkly lights and spinning things to look at. So nice.

Not the best picture, but wanted to include it anyways...

Dear The Civil Wars: I wrote an entire blog post dedicated to my excitement of seeing you in concert here in my hometown - and then you went and cancelled your entire tour due to "irreconcilable differences." What the heck?! This makes me a very sad lady. Very sad indeed.

Dear Christmas Music: It's sooo on. Let's start gettin' in the spirit now :)

Here's to hoping I'm back to normal again and very soon. Because I don't want to waste away the entire 3-day weekend because of this stupid sickness. Prayers are always appreciated :) Happy Friday my friends!

Polls, Parties & More This Weekend

I'm really loving writing me some Friday Letters, so of course we're gonna go for it again this week as well...

Dear Fall Weather: Welcome to Florida! We're so glad you're here. Please feel free to make yourself comfortable and stay a while. We'd be so grateful if you did. Seriously.

Dear Weekend: We've got a lot of stuff planned for you, so get ready to be real busy. But at least it's fun things like a Thirty-One party, a joint party for some toddlers, and a family fish fry. I'll also squeeze in one of my high school-er's cross country race, and the Awaken service on Sunday night. Oh, and the boyfriend and I would like to go on a bike ride sometime too. Aaaand, I would like to attempt to go VOTE early this weekend too. See? Busy - but fun. 

{Side note: please, please, please -- let's all exercise our right and privilege to vote, and head to the polls sometime before Tuesday evening. It's so important, and something I fully believe all adults should do.}

Dear Belly: I literally just ate breakfast an hour and a half ago, and you're hungry already. Chill out. There's still hours before lunch, so you just gotta wait it out there, crazy pants...

Dear Blog: Holy crap we're growing so much still! More friends and followers, and more page views too. This is truly so exciting, and I'm loving every minute of it. Let's keep working hard on improving this little space here on the inter-webs and see where it takes us :)

Dear Trunk-or-Treat 2013: I'm already looking forward to you, so you better happen. We had so much fun decorating Mama's car and seeing all the cute little kids in their cute little costumes. I will go ahead and start planning our trunk for next year, because we want a way to take pictures of cute kids (that we don't know) without seeming creepy -- if that's possible -- so maybe some sort of photo booth set-up or something might work...??

This year our trunk theme was "Gone Fishin," so I'm just wearing my Dad's Columbia shirt.

Happy Friday friends, and happy weekend as well!! Enjoy your couple of days of freedom!

Patch of Pumpkins

Last Friday night, Jeff and I went to the pumpkin patch for a quick date night activity before supper time. We didn't go last year for some silly reason, so I'm glad we got to go together this year! We planned it so we were there right around dusk/sunset, and it was so pretty then! Glad we worked it out that way :) Lots of pretty colors, and sun beams streaming through creating all sorts of loveliness and a bit of a fairy-tale setting almost. Oh, and Florida graced us with some nice weather, and it actually felt great outside too!

Pumpkin Patch dates are fun, aren't they?! :) Now maybe next week, we'll do some punkin' carvin'! Happy Friday!

Posh Spice, Pumpkin Patch & Pasta

Friday
Accidentally matched Jeff all day, without even knowing it...
Bought my first pair of cycling shorts (they have a padded booty!!) and they are amazing!
Went to the pumpkin patch with Jeff and took lots of pretty pictures, which I will share all of on another day
Then Jeff treated us to a nice dinner at Olive Garden, 'cause we had a gift card :)
We had salad & bread sticks, and shared an appetizer and the Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo pasta, which was amazing!!

Seriously - we did not purposefully plan to match each other. I promise, Scout's honor.

This is only my half of our meal - Jeff had his own plate this same size as well! Soo much food. Couldn't finish it.

Saturday
Made breakfast casserole for me and my parents
Went to the Merry Market at my church with Mama and my Aunt (giant craft show)
Stopped by a few random garage sales, and got a cute little pitcher and "matching" salt shaker
Hung out at Jeff's for a bit getting our bikes all ready for our race that night
Split a 20-piece nugget from Mickey D's for some pre-race protein
Raced our second alley cat bike race, and had a blast!! (Rode just over 20 miles, which is my farthest distance!)
Shared a super giant burger with Jeff at Bird's Oyster Shack after the race, with a ton of hipster bike riders
Got home after midnight, showered the nastiness of the race off, and immediately crashed into my pillow

Us on bottom Left: right before the race. Us on bottom Right: after the race and a change of shirts...

Holy Huge Burger, Batman! We had no idea it was this huge when we ordered it...

Sunday
Went to church and then brunch with my parents at Po'Boys
Rested all afternoon at home, playing with pictures and getting blog posts ready for a walk down memory lane...
Watched the first 4 episode's of "The Walking Dead" with my parents, trying to see what all the fuss was about...?
Hung out at Jeff's for just a little bit
Then we met some of my youth kids/friends for some bowling and dinner
Forgot my own socks so I borrowed some sweet ones from Jeff's Mama
Went bowling with The Spice Girls...
Ate at tiny kid's-sized burrito for dinner at Moe's, which was soo good
Had a nice looooooong chat in the parking lot with my friend Sara :)
Went home and crashed into my pillow again

These are some sweet socks, eh?

Can you match our poses to our Spices?!

Soooo -- all-in-all, it was a really great weekend. It was a good mix of fun times, a bit of exercise on the race, and some relaxing time too. Later this week (probably tomorrow) I will write a whole post just about our crazy bike race, because it was super awesome and definitely deserves it's own post. So be on the lookout for that if you want to hear about our Talloween Alley Cat Bike Race! (I'm not kidding, this thing was the jam...) Oh, and here are the nails I'm rockin' right now, although I had a hard time getting a decent looking picture of them...

The lines aren't perfect, but they still look pretty cool!

And I'm linking up today with Sami's Shenanigan's, Synfully Delicious, Covered in Grace and Glitter & Gloss!

Potential to Prove Problematic

Dear Pay Day Friday: I'm so glad you're here! And you come bearing a Fall Luncheon at work today, which promises to be a delicious feast of yummies. (For which I made my Mama made chili!!)

Dear Blog: We've been doing so great lately! We're growing and making new friends, and it's so fun and exciting! Also, we're doing great towards our goals -- this is post #187 of the goal of 200, and at the time of posting we've had 9200 views, only 800 more to go before our goal of 10,000!!!)

Dear Weather: Thank you for actually being pretty cool outside today! It feels lovely, and it will be a perfect night to have dinner and visit a pumpkin patch with my boyfriend :)

Dear Pumpkin Patch: Get ready for me and Jeff tonight, because we'll be coming to visit! We'll be the ones with Starbucks in our hands. And a camera as well for endless amounts of photos.

Dear Talloween Bike Race: I'm a little bit terrified of you tomorrow. I just found out it will be 20 miles, and that's farther than I've ever ridden, and this will be all over town with crazy hills and traffic and stuff! I'm actually really nervous about this, because there's a huge Potential to Prove Problematic for my novice level of cycling. Please help me make it through this Lord...

Dear Sport's Authority: I'll be visiting you in order to get some proper cycling shorts before our race tomorrow night. Please have my size and style. Or else I'll be an angry lady.