Happy Halloween!

I already started eating candy last nite and will continue through today. We aren't sure how many trick-o-treaters we'll get, so Dave bought 5 bags of candy - which hopefully will be gone by 8pm tonite! We finally bought some pumpkins over the weekend and carved them Saturday afternoon. I must admit, I totally cheated and used a stencil - not that anyone will be surprised when they see the pictures. Dave's is an original and very cute! Some of our neighbors have bales of hay and scarecrows up but we're the only ones with actual carved pumpkins - not sure why. Here are the pictures. .and yes, of course, I roasted the seeds & they're yummy!


















A little hard to tell, but mine is a cauldron with ghosts coming out of it as the flames. It's grown on me - but I think I might go back to my usual triangle eyes & upside down triangle nose next year! Happy Halloween everyone!

Huge Houses of the Middle

When I was back in SF, I told some of you about the big houses in the developments around our tiny townhouse. I went for a walk the other morning and brought the camera along to snap a few shots. The autumn leaves are falling off the trees and there is a frost on the grass but the houses look pretty cool. These are newish homes - Dave thinks built in the last 15 years or so. Next time, I'll drive out to one of the older sections of town with the older (for me, prettier) homes. I looked up prices for this area of town (Cornell Woods, if anyone is interested!) and the price range seems to be about $300K on the low end and $550 on the high end. Seems like a lot of money to live in the sticks. . . but life is definitely leisurely here and it's definitely a nice place to raise a family. Don't worry, I'm not staying. . . .but it'd be fun of all you moved out here! Check out the photos here.

Little Man Emmit

My little nephew finally arrived! A week late and after a long labor & c-section, he joined the fray. He's big - almost 10 lbs. when he was born! His name really isn't Emmit, it's Liam Seiji Goodfellow, but I plan to call him Emmit (until I'm told not to!). For the rest of my time in SF, I got to hang with the little man and tried to help out so the parents could get some sleep. He seems pretty mellow and sleeps pretty well (seems to me anyway) and I attribute it to his size and his gender (I think boys are just more mellow). I think he's getting his own blog with video capability soon, so I am just posting a recent (you know, in his 17 days of life) picture. Check out his man-hands. He's either going to play basketball or cricket. . .we'll see!

Uncle John's Cider Mill

Last weekend, it was a beautiful autumn day so we took a field trip to St. Johns (~25 miles north of East Lansing) to visit Uncle John's Cider Mill. I recently read an article about how "agri-entertainment" has become a bit of a industry within MI as family farms struggled and have had to come up with new ways to maintain a revenue stream. Well, Uncle John's is one that has done a pretty good job of that! On the premises, they have a working cider mill, a bakery, gift shop, cafe, pumpkin patch, train rides, wine tasting (Yes, we bought a bottle of Uncle John's sparking apple wine!), fruit fling (pay to fling fruit!) and a corn maze. They even have live entertainment (We saw "BarStormers" - classic rock - Lynrd Skynrd & Johnny Cash covers!). So we had some lunch and then went to have cider doughnuts & fresh pressed apple cider - and watched the cider mill in action (neat - like a food network show). Then we took the free train out to the corn maze, pumpkin patch and fruit fling - all very entertaining! I've never been to a pumpkin patch where the pumpkins were still growing! Next we tasted wine - a flight of 6 - many with farm fruit themes. Dave pointed out that I was the only Asian person in the whole joint - but toward the end of the day, we saw a bunch of young Asian girls (maybe students at the university) waiting in line for the train - so I wasn't the token anymore! I posted photos here if you want to take a peek. At the end of the day, we walked away with a half gallon of fresh cider, a dozen cider donuts, a bottle of wine and a half a "peck" of fresh picked Northern Spy apples (don't know what a peck is, but it's about 5 lbs.). I made apple pie earlier this week and will make an apple torte over the weekend!

Got Out of Dodge! (for a few days)

I attended a conference last week in NYC and got to spend a few days working out of our NY office. I was by myself so spent a lot of time walking around midtown and enjoying being urban and the culinary delights that are so sorely lacking in MI! My first hotel was right in Times Square (where the conference was) so I had a pastrami sandwich from Carnegie Deli, musubis from Oms/b, picked up chocolates from Pierre Marcolini & Martine's and spent at least an hour and about $50 at Kate's Paperie! Changed hotels later in the week to be close to the office (Murray Hill) and had a great dinner with Nancy & Linna at A Voce on 26th/Madison. We didn't get to see Linna's triplets as it was a break for her (first time out of the house alone in 4 months?!) but conversation & food was excellent (I highly recommend A Voce!). One nite I was wandering midtown (awesome weather) and stumbled upon an "art" installation in Rockefeller Center Plaza. My pictures don't really do it justice but as you can see, it's huge concave/convex mirror so reflects everything going on around it (and as it's NYC, there is always something!).



The pictures don't really do it justice - it was pretty neat - for modern "art" anyway. Surpisingly, it was nice to be back in the country & home after a week in the city! NY though, always an excellent time!