Telfer and I spent all of last week at Internet Librarian in Monterey. Well, I conferenced and he relaxed (reading and playing xbox)…we had such a good time. Monterey is beautiful and foggy in the fall. Highlights included the Sardine Factory (alarmingly lucrative happy hour) seeing the movie, Good Night, and Good Luck (which I seriously felt like we should have had a discussion group with the crowd in the theater after the movie ended), and the heavenly clam chowder at Whole Foods (why are all my highlights food-related? I should talk about the conference and all of the techie things I learned…but boy that was good clam chowder!)
Picture 1: Standing in front of the Sardine Factory. Picture 2: On an entirely separate night at the Sardine Factory. Picture 3: Good view. Picture 4: Us in front of the view.

Isn’t Telfer the nicest-looking 26 year-old? Telfer actually got to spend part of his birthday with his parents, who just happened to be in Palm Springs. We had a very nice dinner out in the desert together.

We were surprised by rain on our way out of church this morning and proceeded to race back to the comfort of our house. After a delicious breakfast of apple-cinnamon pancakes we built our first fire (in our first fireplace in our first house) and settled in front of it with plenty of reading material. The added bonus for me was the convenient cancellation of some planned re-painting of trim on our front porch due to rain…so sad.

Yes, I realize that we are getting a little old for this type of thing…but I love fall and the pumpkin patch (we actually have a really nice one near us in Yucaipa). Telfer was very concerned about the prices of California pumpkins, but thankfully, we did not break the bank on our fall outing (notice that October has not translated into fall weather – it’s been in the 90s most of the month). We take what we can get.

I know I am hopelessly biased, but I think my nieces are among the cutest children ever to crawl on the face of the earth. Eden is nearly two and-a-half and I love hearing about how much she reflects her age. She loves Elmo and recently left me a message singing the entire alphabet. Impressive. Cora is almost six months old. She is especially good at making cute noises and spitting up on her mom (right after she takes a shower and gets dressed).