Fall Scents

Ahhh the smell of fall is in the air...I love stepping out into the early morning and taking that first breath of crisp cool air.  The weather has turned cold and the beautiful leaves are falling to their final resting place.  This week I went to a friends house where she had sweet fall scented candles burning.  To add to the fall scents, we made a delicious pumpkin roll complete with a cream cheese filling!

 

 As our nostrils filled with the sweet aroma, our taste buds yearned for the first bite!  Although it's no professional looking roll, it sure tasted good!  You have to give us credit, it was our first try at making a roll!  

Later on in the week Carl and I decided to carve our pumpkins!

Carl, sticking with the "city plan" theme he started last year,
decided to throw space ships in the mix this year!

I on the other hand, went the simpler route!

 I don't know about you but I love the smell of burning candle's in pumpkins!  I think that the smells of the seasons are one of my favorite parts of the seasons, they seem to bring back familiar memories of seasons past!

Have you carved your pumpkin yet?

No Title: I Can't Think Of One

What a week...It started just like any other week and then Thursday rolled around.  I  knew my community manager was coming to visit our branch that day, what I didn't know was that he was specifically coming to see me!  When he came and sat in my office, I didn't think anything of it, until he closed the door, looked at me and asked, "So Leah, are you up for a challenge?"  In my head I was screaming "Nooooooooooooooooo!" (I have issues with change) but out of my mouth came "absolutely"...Stupid mouth!  Not that it would have mattered what I said, the decision was made, I am being transferred.  The news came as somewhat of a shock as I was told about a month ago that I wouldn't be transferred.  But, as of October 31st I will be working at a branch in downtown Kingston.  I have mixed feelings about the move...I'm sure it will be a fun place to work being right downtown and all but it means that my routine of going to the gym in the morning is going to have to change and instead of a 15 minute walk to work, it will be a 45 minute walk.  If I decide to drive, we'll have to factor parking into our budget and I don't think my raise (if I even get one) will cover the cost of the parking fees!  So needless to say, there are some pro's and con's to this new adventure!  The day after I got this news, and at that point was feeling a tad blue about the decision, something happened that cheered my mood, I won hockey tickets!  We had a raffle at work and I am the lucky winner of 2 tickets to an NHL game in Ottawa where the Ottawa Senators play the Toronto Maple Leafs!  We haven't decided yet as to whether we should go to the game or sell the tickets and use the money to buy Canucks Jerseys!

On Saturday, my work had planned a garage sale to raise funds for United Way.  Although the weather had been nice, on Saturday it decided to turn evil!  We were awake at 5:30am and by 7:30am we had the tents up outside and most of our items out for sale...And getting wet.  By about 9:30am the wind had picked up and was not only tossing our tents around but a lot of our items that we had for sale as well!  By 10:30am everything was back in the branch and we had our garage sale in the lobby!  It was quite the day but it was fun and we raised over $700!  

That evening Carl and I went and saw one of our favorite Vancouver singers at a small venue here in Kingston.  We got there early so we could get good seats and see Dan Mangan up close but as soon as he started playing, all the crazy teenagers ran to the front of the stage, standing right in front of our hand picked seats.  Carl looked at me with a frustrated look, I shook my head in disappointment and thought to myself "you know you're getting old when..."  Although we couldn't see much of the concert, we still enjoyed it! 

At the concert, sporting my new haircut (I got bangs...And now Carl finally understands what bangs are!)

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings, on this beautiful Thanksgiving day!  In fact, for us Kingstonians, it's not just been a beautiful day but a beautiful weekend with temperatures reaching to the mid twenties!  After the few cold days we've had, this weather has been re-freshing (although it's really throwing off my wardrobe!).  Carl and I could not let a sunny weekend go by without catching some rays so we headed out on Saturday morning for some exploration!  We drove about 30 minutes out of town to a place called Jones Falls, the location of one of the lock systems along the Rideau Canal.  This location was built over 170 years ago and is home to what used to be North America's highest Dam (see picture on right).  Although we've been to several lock stations I never really knew what the lock system was for or how it worked so I found these fun facts interesting...

• The Rideau Canal is North America's oldest operating 19th-century canal. Most of the locks are still cranked open by old-fashioned muscle power.
• The original purpose of the Rideau Canal was to provide a safe supply route between Montreal and the Great Lakes in case of attack by the United States.
• The canal was one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century requiring the construction of 24 dams and 46 locks.
• The area was a wilderness when the Canal was built -- despite the northern climate, many of the workers died from malaria in the mosquito-infested swamps.
• At the Ottawa River end of the Canal, head engineer, Lieutenant Colonel John By, founded a community called Bytown. It later changed its name to Ottawa and became the Capital of Canada.
• In the winter, the Ottawa portion of the Canal is made into a gigantic skating rink, the longest in the world.

For more history on the locks, check out http://www.rideau-info.com/canal/history/hist-canal.html

 Originally I wanted to try and go away this weekend, to explore a new area and have a quite relaxing weekend hopefully staying in a B&B or hotel with TV!  We've been without TV for a year now and I must say I do actually kind of miss it.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find a place that was out of town and within our budget so we found a place in town that we could afford!  My friend Julie lives right across the street from us and was away this weekend so I proposed to Carl that we break in to her house, use the BBQ to cook up some steaks and watch a little TV!  He was all for it!  Breaking in wasn't to hard as Julie gave me a key and we got to spend our Saturday night with some TLC...And HGTV and the Discovery Channel... 

On Sunday we headed to Tweed after church to meet up with Great Great Aunt Joanie and Fred.  From there, just like last year we headed to Joanie's kid's cottages.  On our way there last year we had no idea where we were headed.  This year, from all of our explorations we could actually figure out where in Ontario we were!  We saw a lot of familiar faces from last year and a whole bunch of new faces!  There ended up being about 45 people over for dinner!  And just before the feast, we all gathered inside the little cottage to say grace, holding hands to pray, we encircled the entire cottage!  

And lastly, I will leave you with some colorful fall photos!

These are the trees right outside our window!

A view at Jones Falls

Leah and Carl

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Food For Thought (too cliche?)

So lately Carl and I have been doing really well with meal planning.  Usually one of us will sit down on the weekend and try and plan out at least four meals that we will have during the following week and then write out the grocery list.  It saves us the stress of thinking everyday "what are we gonna make for dinner?" and it usually ends up saving us a few extra little trips to the grocery store!  Since I learned on Dr.Oz last week that Yam's (aka. Sweet Potatoes) are really good for you, we've incorporated them into our diet by having hamburgers...With yam fries!  Who knew that making yam fries could be so easy?!  We've also managed to concoct our own chiptole aioli, yum!  This has happened to be such a hit with our stomachs that we may have had it twice in the past week...
In other food news, Carl went out with the guys on Saturday night so I decided to make good use of my time and some fruit!  I baked some scrumptious banana muffins and used some of our apple's from last week's apple picking adventure to make an apple crisp!  So yummy when warmed and served with ice cream!  I think I may have to spend some extra time at the gym this week! 
And while we're on the topic of food...On Sunday morning we went to church as per usual.  For most of you church goers you'll know that a lot of churches encourage you to say hello to people haven't met before or haven't seen in church before.  I always find this a little uncomfortable and have to admit that I normally stick to talking to my usual group of friends.  This Sunday, when church had just ended, the girl sitting in front of us turned around and introduced herself and we some small talk.  Then she just invited us over lunch!  I was a little surprised and to be honest my gut reaction was to say the usual "oh that sounds nice but..." and then make up an excuse as to why we couldn't go.  But Carl was quicker than me to reply and the next thing I knew we were walking with 2 complete strangers over to one of their houses for lunch!  The girl that invited us over had never met any of the 3 of us that she had over until that morning.  It actually ended up being really fun and made me kind of think twice about being able to reach out and talk to strangers.  I wonder if I can break out of my shell and invite someone new over to my house for lunch one Sunday...