This might be the most beautiful autumn I’ve experienced. It must be something with Virginia weather, because the trees have taken their time to turn and seem to be at a peak right now. Even though it would have been a beautiful time for a wedding, it was a great weekend to have free and we thoroughly enjoyed it. As much as I wanted to blog day of it was just to nice outside to be at my computer, so here’s a recap.

Saturday morning after plans for an early start we slept in and started the day off at the Harrisonburg farmer’s market. It was a little rainy then, but it didn’t last too long. Not only did we pick up some delicious produce, we also had a homemade doughnut and scone (maple flavored – yum!) which we shared. It’s usually easier for me to eat scones and doughnuts when I don’t make them, since then I don’t know how much butter and sugar is involved – which is good because they were delicious. Next stop was Shank’s bakery for some fresh bread, coffee, and quiche to finish off our touring breakfast. By this time the rain had stopped, so we shed our raincoats and went to T+E meats to pick up some meat, of course, and order our thanksgiving turkey! That’s right – thanksgiving is at our house this year, and Matt and I are looking forward to putting out a feast for the family. We haven’t planned the menu yet, but once we do maybe I’ll share our cooking secrets and you can either ridicule our ways our steal our ideas. Our turkey is going to be from Polyface farms, and I kind of feel honored to be able to get such a high quality organic bird.

We then headed home to unpack and regroup before going to Artisan’s Hope to checkout what we could pick up in the way of Christmas presents. I know, you’re surprised. I’m buying Christmas presents and it’s October… I’m thinking ahead and I like it. Anyway’s it’s a great store for presents, since there are so many fair trade items you can get something unique, which is exactly what we did. I can’t tell you what of course, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Our Saturday didn’t end here. After our little shopping trip I took lexi for a walk, collected the leaves you see above, and then came back and get ready to go mountain biking. As my second official time riding I am a beginner, but I made it out alive with only a few scrapes and conquered a hard section with rocks. I count that as a victory. With enough practice maybe I will be able to move out of the backyard and onto some real trails. :) joke.

If that wasn’t enough of a day for you, I stayed up late finishing Brendan + Stephanie’s wedding photos and posted them online. In fact, they need to make their way on the blog so I need to finish getting everything ready for that. I’m off to work on that, and you will see more of the gorgeous autumn down here when I post Christie + Kyle’s engagement photos that I shot in Harrisonburg yesterday! …stay tuned…