Fabulous Fall

I am loving Fall so far.  I know I lamented in a post a little while ago that I was mourning the end of summer - but I'm past that period now.  It helps that we've been filling our Fall with fun activities and I've still been in this relaxed, day at a time pace of life.

It's funny - I always say Fall is my favorite season (and my apologies to my allergy suffering friends who cannot stand this season) but the last several years found Fall not being terribly kind to me.  To the point that last year I was ready to say "screw this, I don't have a favorite season."  It just seemed we'd get hit with less than pleasant things in the Fall - deaths in the family, Nate losing his job, the dark days we went through last year, etc.  And it's early yet - in fact true "Autumn" doesn't start until this Saturday - but so far, it's looking promising.

I'm glad Mother Nature turned off the furnace at long last.  It's been amazing sleeping weather - I love burrowing under blankets when there is a chill in the air.

Nate and I did another Living Social event this past Friday - a beer/boat cruise on Lake Minnetonka.  The weather could not have been better.  It wasn't too cold, but just enough that a light jacket felt nice.  It was absolutely beautiful out there.  The sun gently set over us as we cruised the lake for two hours.  We enjoyed delicious appetizer and four small pours from a new brewery in town - Excelsior Brewing Company.  We ended up sitting with some older folks - who were absolutely delightful.  We have actually found that to be the unique thing at these Living Social events - we're forced to step out of our comfort zone and chat with people we don't know.  We've had some great conversations with some of these folks.  No, we haven't necessarily become lifelong friends and will likely never see each other again, but still.  Friday was no exception, one of the older folks sitting with us was in town from Seattle visiting his brother and sister-in-law and man did this gentleman have stories!  He talked a great deal about boating in South America and it sounded so beautiful!  I could have listened to him for hours.

After the boat ride, the taproom was open at Excelsior so we stopped there as well.  Nate wrote about this a bit more in his latest Pants Monkey Brewing post over here, so I won't say much more other than I am falling in love with all these taprooms opening up in the Twin Cities.  I think my favorite is still Indeed Brewing in Northeast, but I've enjoyed all of the ones we've gotten to so far.

Sunday morning it was warmer and we decided to have brunch out at a patio.  So we headed down to Eli's in Northeast.  I had turkducken eggs benedict.  You heard me right.  It was FABULOUS.  I couldn't eat the whole thing though, it was also crazy rich.

So that was just this past weekend alone, but I have to say, I haven't had a bad weekend so to speak since before Itasca!  Not that any weekend is ever horrible, but yeah.  And looking ahead there is more greatness to come - less than a month to Oktoberfest!  And there are other fun dates on the calendar involving beer and friends and good times.

Maybe I'm going to jinx everything by saying this Fall rocks.  So I will just say that for TODAY, I love Fall.