Happy Halloween!

Trouble always likes to keep us on our toes, and today was no exception. He decided to get into a (full) bottle of Advil while we were having brunch this morning. Long story short...the advil never "came back up" and we are watching him to make sure he's ok. We are hoping he doesn't develop stomach ulcers as a result...This dog never ceases to amaze me!

Do you see a bat?? Or a silly face??

Peak!

It's officially "peak" foliage and I am in photog-heaven.  I went back to Mt. Auburn cemetery today with the little guy I babysit. It was SEVENTY degrees, which I'm fairly certain was a record high for this time of year. Tomorrow we return to the fifty-degree temperatures, but I soaked it up today while it lasted.

 

  

Hanover, NH

We took a last-minute trip up to New Hampshire yesterday, and the drive was some of the most beautiful fall-foliage we've seen. We decided to walk around and grab some food at a local restaurant. Unfortunately Nick's macaroni and cheese was laced with someone's hair from their kitchen, so it wasn't the best dining experience. (On a positive note...my stir fry was good and there were no obvious traces of hair).

Hanover is a charming little town. Dartmouth is the main "hub" in town, and there are lots of cute houses that lined the neighborhood. I doubt the fall colors can get much better than this!

 

 

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth

Pumpkin-carving and a failed attempt at family photos

We carved one of our two pumpkins this weekend. It was meant to be a bat, but it looks like it could double as a silly face. The dogs wanted to help eat the insides of the pumpkins, and at one point Gillie managed to sneak herself a little piece.

With fall foliage beginning to peak, I wanted to get a family picture with the beautiful colors. We got ready and went to Larz Anderson Park. There were a few trees that had popped with color, but most of them seem to have gone straight to brown. We found a tree and I got everything set up, but the sunlight was blinding and we didn't have enough shade to cover the 4 of us. Then my camera didn't want to work on auto-timer, so we gave up. At least I got some photos of the incredible colors on the tree! Hopefully we'll try again next weekend with better lighting and better luck.

Preparing to trace the scary bat outline

                       

If Trubs weren't "white-washed," this might be a keeper.

 

The Butterfly Book

More pictures of Jasper, the little guy I spend lots of time with throughout the week. He is fascinated by his "butterfly book" and we spent hours looking through it.

Mt. Auburn

Some more fall foliage. Not quite at the peak, but close. These were taken at Mt. Auburn Cemetery...

 

Clean Water

I typically don't do the "chain letter" type things on our blog, but this is a huge global issue affecting billions of people.

If you sign the petition, it would help to increase the UN's efforts to bring clean, safe drinking water to billions of people around the world. We are unbelievably fortunate to have clean drinking water here, but people elsewhere are not so fortunate.

Please take the time to sign the petition. =)

The following is from the organization's website:

1. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it’s no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.

2. More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.

3. Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted. Aside from putting a great deal of strain on their bodies, walking such long distances keeps children out of school and women away from other endeavors that can help improve the quality of life in their communities.

4. It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that’s just one meal! It would take over 1.8 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.

5. The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world. From showering and washing our hands to watering our lawns and washing our cars, Americans use a lot of water. To put things into perspective, the average five-minute shower will use about 10 gallons of water. Now imagine using just 10 gallons to bathe, wash your clothes, cook your meals and quench your thirst.

The Gillie Grin

Some may notice we have a slight bias toward Gillie. In our defense, we have thousands of pictures of Trouble and I've captured most of his facial expressions, whereas Gillie is harder to get photos of. That, and we are pretty obsessed with this little dog.

We took the dogs to a big field and let them run yesterday. Gillie obsesses about the tennis ball, and Trouble sprints in circles until he's too tired to run any longer.

Long weekends are good for the soul

As far as New England weather goes, this weekend was one of the best. The sun was shining after a week of nearly non-stop rain, and the temperature has been a perfect 65-70 degrees. We slept in, took the dogs for a walk, Nick studied for an exam,  and we hung out with fellow UCLA alum to watch us get killed by Cal....(that was definitely the most sad part of the weekend.) Nick joined a flag football team through MIT, so he soaked up the weather by playing yesterday. We picked a couple pumpkins, and next weekend we will be carving some funny characters.


I am off to work for the rest of the day, but because its Columbus Day I didn't have class.Woo hoo! My classes for tomorrow were also canceled for a faculty day. Nick has a big exam in Fluid Dynamics tomorrow, but we all know he is going to destroy the exam! :)

How do ya like them Apples?

We decided not to go to the Cape this weekend due to high winds. Instead we went to our favorite brunch spot this morning and then headed to Western Massachusetts for some apple picking. Nick could not understand the appeal of apple picking, but I was drawn to the idea of apple cider and I had heard amazing things about the cider donuts they serve. I found dozens of places to pick apples, but I was not fond of the places with Disneyland set-ups, and wanted to skip the frills and pick apples while not being run over by strollers.

The drive was gorgeous. Fall foliage is incredible and we could have driven all day just to stare at the leaves. The donuts did not disappoint! They reminded me of warm, fresh churros! We topped it off with some apple cider...perfect!

We wandered the orchard and filled up our bag with a few varieties of apples. No pumpkin today, but that will be the goal next weekend.

Another busy week ahead, as usual. Fall is near peak in terms of the colors and I hope we get out next weekend to enjoy it.

Cider donut

Old FORD truck in the woods behind the orchard