Our 2nd Annual Fall Festival!

Today was a day I’ve been looking forward to for months…

Fall Festival!

Last year, a small group of us got together to start what we later deemed as our “First Annual Fall Festival Weekend.” Last year’s FF included lots of fun things, like apple picking, pumpkin carving, and other fun festivities.

 

 

 

 

While we couldn’t seem to workout an entire weekend for this year, we were all still able to get together, plus a few new additions to the group! :-D Thanks to Sarah & Jeff hosting us all of the day, and some well-thought out planning by the ladies of the group ( ;) ) the day included tons of goodies and pretty fall decor.

FYI: Caramel Apple Hershey Kisses are phenomenal. They really do taste like caramel apples…SO good! :shock:

Lots of snacks & football around a cozy fire. :)

Does this cheese look familiar to you? You may remember when I first tried this amazing Apple Harvest Cheddar with Cinnamon a few weeks ago. I was psyched when Sarah told me she picked it up for our Fall Fest. :-D

Punkin’ Bread

Cider Donuts!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually it was time to round up the troops for a delicious Fall Festival meal…

Homemade chili in bread bowls!

Mal probably makes the best chili I’ve ever tasted. I was feeling pretty confident about my first chili attempt…but she definitely leaves me in the dust! :oops:

I don’t know if I’ll ever want to eat chili that is not in a bread bowl. It’s just the absolute perfect combination! :-P

Our 2nd Annual Fall Festival Crew! You may see some familiar faces gathered ‘round this table. It almost felt like we were all sitting down for a Thanksgiving meal! :)

 

 

 

 

After stuffing our faces with chili and carbs, it was time to get crackin’ on some PUMPKIN CARVING!

Brook enjoying his punkin’ guts!

I had to laugh at this photo after I realized that I had one very similar from last year’s FF!

Everybody was hard at work!

Surprisingly, it didn’t take me long to pick out a pattern to carve, so I was ready to get down to business.

Just gettin’ started…

Halfway there…

TA-DA!! :-D

Didn’t everyone do such a great job?? :)

While carving our ‘punks, we all worked up enough room in the bellies to enjoy a little dessert, courtesy of yours truly. ;)

Fall Funfetti Cookies with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

Recipe to come soon! :)

Pumpkin Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Pumpkin Mousse with Pecan Streusel Topping

This stuff is addicting!

Don’t worry, I have a recipe comin’ your way for this too! ;)

And thanks to our pumpkins, we toasted up some Cinnamon Spiced Pumpkin seeds, which were actually quite tasty! I’d never had them before, but I really enjoyed them! Thanks to Sarah for cookin’ these babies up…I’ll have the recipe for these soon too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was definitely a GREAT Fall Festival with great friends! (And my Jets even won too, WOO HOO!) I had been looking forward to it for so long, it was kinda sad to see it end so soon. :(

Ahh well, you know what they say…all good things must come to an end!

So before I go crawl into my nice warm bed for the evening, let me leave you all with a pretty picture of mine & Jay’s handy pumpkin carving skills:

Jay’s

Courtney’s

Pretty fun, huh?? :)

 

Happy Fall to Ya’ll!! Hope you all had as fun a weekend as I did! :-D

Question for the Evening:

What were some of the highlights from YOUR weekend??