Happy Columbus Day! I hope today is as happy for you as it is for me. If you don’t have off….sorry. I’ll be spending the day doing all the things I haven’t done since I went back to school: aka baking and cooking.

Confession: I’ve been buying more produce than I can cook/eat. I was good when I went to the food store this week, but for the last 2 weeks I was bad and had to throw out a whole bunch of food yesterday. I HATE when that happens, so I need to be more conscious of how much I can actually eat in a week.

This weekend was the first weekend we didn’t have any big plans or anything to travel for. I enjoyed every second of it. Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed everything we have done in the past weeks, especially THIS, but I loved relaxing!

Saturday we went apple and pumpkin picking. Well, we went apple picking and then picked pumpkins from a small area at a farm. We didn’t have time to do two “pick your owns”.  First we went to this big farm called Lewin’s and it was a huge farmer’s market with pumpkins. They had roasted corn and baked potatoes at a stand, so we couldn’t resist. They actually had a big tub of melted butter that they ladled onto the corn and potatoes. (Yes we got butter on our baked potato) It was delish!

Lewin's

Pumpkin Patch

A winner!

When we got to the apple farm Danny told me that I had to change into the sneakers. I didn’t see why, but it was the better option. (Point 1: Danny)

This was our first time apple picking and it was so much fun. We came home with 2 big bags of apples, so if anyone had great apple recipes let me know!

Christmas Trees too!

Sunday we did our longest run to date, which was 11 miles. We were only slated to do 10.5, but after realizing we probably won’t do a very long run next weekend, we just did the extra half a mile. (Next weekend is a wedding in Newport for me and Boston for Danny.) Even though we had done 10 miles last weekend, I was nervous.

I finally said it out loud after a couple of minutes because I thought at least I could get it off my chest. After I said it out loud, I felt much better. We took it slow for awhile and then took a walking break after 70 minutes for a couple of minutes. Then something happened and we decided to kick up the pace. I swear I felt the best at about mile 8.5. Mile 10.5-11 was tough, but I still felt great. This was the best run I’ve had. I think by mile 7 we were doing about 9 minute miles, which I think is amazing. Again, really I have no way of telling, but I usually have a pretty good judgement of pace.

After getting home we both stretched. I took about 15 minutes to go through a bunch of yoga poses (and iced my knees at night) and it must have helped because I’m not sore at all today.

And then there was homemade apple pie….recipe to come. (Don’t mind my just out of the shower hair…)

Apple Pie!

If you have any apple recipes….please share!

So I am on a quest to really enjoy my last three weeks of summer, is anyone else?? Danny and I have a check off list for summer (in our heads not written down) and we got to cross off two things this past weekend. Last summer we randomly drove out to the Hamptons for the afternoon and night to walk around, sit on the beach, shop and eat some food. We had our after party for our wedding out there and wanted to go back to visit. I’ll have to post some pictures of that amazing party that made our wedding one day. It was right on the beach with tents, a dj, fire pit, grilled pizzas and that was after our 5 hours wedding.

We were planning on going out there but we weren’t sure if we’d go Friday and stay over or what, but since Danny got home last Friday we decided to go Saturday. We left around 2 and got there around 4. Of course we needed gas by the time we got out to Hampton Bays, so we got off to get gas and took a scenic route, instead of taking 27 all the way out. By the time we got there it was about 4, so we walked around for an hour.

How cute is that Ralph Lauren store?? That picture is for my mother in law. And of course I found JCREW, but I especially love how it says, “at the beach”.

After we walked around we headed to look at houses and to go to the beach. We had our after party on Dune beach, but we decided to just go to the first one we saw.

We also found this serve yourself farm stand on the side of the road. We put $10 in the box and took strawberries and cherry tomatoes. The prices was listed on the side.

After the beach we headed to dinner at Barrister’s on Main Street. They had a menu full of salads, sandwiches, a bunch of fish and meat.  We got a tuna carpaccio appetizer to start, which was amazing. Danny had the monterey chicken sandwich and I had a shrimp and spinach salad. Dinner was delicious and the prices were very reasonable. Then, of course, we had to get ice cream. We went to the local ice cream shop that was down the street and I got vanilla and chocolate twist frozen yogurt and Danny got a milkshake.

It made for an amazing day! See you next year Southampton!

I’m just going to continue on with my weekend….sorry for the long post.

Sunday we decided to go for a run in Riverside Park. We drove in with plans to run and then meet friends for lunch. It is BEAUTIFUL there, why has it taken us so long to run here?? I don’t know but I know we will be back. We ran for 60 minutes, don’t know how far, but I imagine about 6 miles. We ran in the park out and then ran next to the water on the way back.

Next, it was onto lunch. We went to Gina La Fornaria. We split 2 pizzas and I also got a salad. (There were four of us.) The pizzas are super thin and crispy, my favorite.

And that’s basically it for the weekend. Oh, one more thing, my sister is bring the muffin tops into work today. They ended up looking like this.

One more annoucement…Danny and I have officially signed up for the Philadelphia Half Marathon on November 21st! Training starts in about two weeks!