Our Indian summer

I absolutely LOVE this time of year.  The cool, crisp air, the gorgeous fall colors, the smell of wet, decaying leaves on the ground, and the fact that you can finally wear that favorite sweater and scarf.

This fall season has been incredibly warm too!  The past few weeks have had temps in the 70's and 80's and the sun has been shining nonstop.  We spent this past weekend in Bayfield, WI for their 50th annual Apple Festival.  It was a beautiful day and we had a pretty good time eating corn dogs and apple torte and browsing through all the artist tents and vendors.  We were planning to make it to the orchard this year, but we were pretty pooped out by the time we got back to the car.

I also took advantage of the bright moon and crisp air last night and asked my mother to take an evening walk with me.  I had been feeling sluggish that afternoon and taking a walk was just what I needed to feel better.  Good company too. :)

Last week we also got a paper bag full of apples from my parent's tree.  They are great baking apples so I decided to bake an apple pie.  I've always had trouble making a homemade pie crust but this time it worked out deliciously using this recipe and I used Betty Crocker's apple pie recipe for the filling.  Yum! I'm also planning to make apple bread and apple crisp too.

But the biggest news of all and also the news that we've been keeping secret since living in Arizona is...

we bought a house!!  Not just any house, but the one that I and my five other siblings grew up in.  The house that is over 100 years old and that my parent's have owned for over 40 years.  The house with the apple tree (shown below) that my parent's planted SO many years ago.  The house with the backyard that Maria and Ginger had so much fun playing in over the summer.

I never, in a million years, thought that I would ever move back to the small town in which I grew up, but it has never felt SO right.  This house has all the farmhouse charm that I've always wanted in a house and it has plenty of room for us to grow into.  It has a bedroom for each of the girls as well as a nice large family/play room upstairs.  Scott's looking forward to breaking in his heated garage next month brewing an anticipated batch of beer, and I'm making plans for my own jewelers workshop and artist studio in what used to be my dad's barber shop in the basement.  With the house being right on the main drag going up the north shore, it couldn't be more perfect for summer tourism.

There's so many things I'd like to do to this house in order to make it feel like ours and not my parent's... mostly painting.  But we're trying not to rush into things and overwork ourselves... again. :)  We have our whole lives to make it our own, but quite honestly, I don't think I can wait that long or even until next summer!

I'm looking forward to sharing more with you about this new addition to our lives. Paint chips, furniture finds, and decorating ideas are sure to be in the mix.

We move in at the end of the month and we couldn't be more excited!