Turkey Month

Boo!

Happy Halloween! We're enjoying the fabulous Charleston Fall weather by spending lots of time outdoors and doing a lot of camping! In between rounds of camping, we've managed to fit in lots of other stuff though...more about that in the photos. Instead, let's whip through these goals.

• We volunteered at another event this month - a Latin American Festival. Except it got canceled due to the entirety of Charleston being flooded. Boo.
• I made a couple recipes in early September to share.  See Zucchini Breads 1 & 2, and Zucchini Bread 3.
• We had at at least one camping trip this month. Maybe two? So we camped one night, and we're slated to be camping again this weekend. Count it!
• It would be pretty great to have refrigeration for our camping trip. We just need a house battery, a regulator, and some wooden stuff. We failed to get any of this done, we were waiting on new credit cards before we started making big purchases.
• Ribs were on sale...so I bought a rack of ribs. Recipe forthcoming. Oh dang, I forgot to post that recipe. Next week?

Okay, I've obviously got some making up to do. Goals for November:

• Get that ribs recipe out there!
• I missed First Friday Art Walk last month (actually it was canceled when downtown was under water) so I do NOT want to miss this month.
• We've got two volunteering gigs this month, including a Harvest Festival!
• Then we've got a murder mystery dinner party, which is so far out of my comfort zone I don't even know where to start.
• Plus a music festival campout.
• And then Thanksgiving Misgivings campout with the bus club
• And after that Thanksgiving itself! I'm not sure if I'm roasting a turkey this year, but last year I got pretty turkey-ed out after making one at home, then having some at work, then having some at Misgivings, then having some on Thanksgiving...

The first weekend of October had everyone talking about one thing: RAIN. It just didn't stop. We didn't flood much, but we both went pretty stir-crazy being stuck in the house for so long.

When the water cleared up, we found we had a new neighbor.  He lives uncomfortably close to my car, but we've lived in a peace for a few weeks now and I think we can be friends, providing no one strays onto the other neighbor's territory.  Besides, his web is pretty cool looking.

My mornings have been fueled by this. Will I ever stop missing Michigan? Probably never.

We ended up volunteering at an event called Bark in the Park Octoberfest, where I poured beer all day and Kyle corralled dogs. I couldn't resist snapping a pic of this cutie.

And then when everyone was cleaning up, I got suckered in by these sweet golden pups. They were just so soft and playful! (No, we do not own a dog now.)

Since we have actual friends now, we got invited to an awesome cookout where only one person got poisoned a little bit (and he lived, so it's cool).  Plus we carved pumpkins and made caramel apples!

We spent one night camping. We had planned on two, but we had a change of plans. Despite that, we still got to see people we hadn't seen in a long time and hopefully we can catch up more at November campouts!

Our change of plans happened when I won tickets to a music festival. Lest you think I have all the luck, the ONLY way to attend this festival was to win tickets, so they were doing big giveaways every day. Kyle and I had to stake out a gas station where they were drawing two names every five minutes. It only took half an hour for my name to be called, so we didn't wait around too long.

The festival was AMAZING. The bands were on point, the weather was perfect, and there were tons of free activities.

Kyle and I each won a free shirt (by playing the worst version of beer tea pong I've ever seen), plus, for the second time this year, we drank some Guinness world record iced tea. Only instead of locally grown saccharine sweet tea, this was heartless corporate tea. Sorry, Summerville. At least I actually got to drink some of this tea.

The festival was almost 12 hours long, and since reentry wasn't allowed we basically lazed around a park for a day and listened to bands ranging from BØRNS to Outasight to The Roots to Passion Pit(!!!!!). Plus since we hadn't spent any money on tickets it was much easier to justify the ridiculous food truck and beer prices. Definitely an epic day. Ending with "Sleepyhead." At which point I declared I could die happy.

October was absolutely great, and November looks like it's going to be pretty amazing as well. Bring it on!

Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

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Zucchini Bread, Two Ways

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Hatch Chile Cheese Fries

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Pumpkin Month

September was a giant month full of ALL THE THINGS! Kyle's fall semester is now in full swing, and we are BUSY. Right now our lives are all about balance - Get a school project done...then work on a bus project. Work really hard...then bring some snacks to the beach.

That's why September's goals were pretty chill.  October's will be too.

• Find some good, easy crockpot recipes to make mealtime easier.  I tried out a crockpot 12 bean soup recipe but wasn't too impressed. That's pretty much all I tried. It was really easy, at least.
• Put that stupid window back in the bus. September 6 shall go down in history as the day we called in an expert and traded zucchini bread for manpower and finally got that last window to give.
• We both signed up to volunteer at a surf event at Folly Beach. The event was called Wheel to Surf, and we were helping disabled people surf! It was one of the coolest events ever.
• Clean up the garden.  Dead and dried things removed, now it almost looks like a happy garden again!
• Figure out what we're doing Labor Day Weekend. We put the window back in the bus and that is all I remember about Labor Day Weekend.

Alright, let's see what I can muster up for October.

• We're volunteered at another event this month - a Latin American Festival. We'll be slinging cervezas all day long.
• I made a couple recipes in early September that I haven't gotten around to sharing, so expect to see some tasty treats this month.
• We're looking at at least one camping trip this month. Maybe two? Maybe two. 
• It would be pretty great to have refrigeration for our camping trip. We just need a house battery, a regulator, and some wooden stuff.
• Ribs were on sale...so I bought a rack of ribs. I have no idea what to do with them! So that's happening.

Gratuitous shot of the world's most stubborn window:

Check out this buddy I found at work! Just chillin' on the sidewalk.

We hardly ever go out to eat, and when we do, it's usually a taco truck where $9 will sate us both. Well, we decided to splurge during Charleston Restaurant Week.  People! This is one of the best meals I've had in a long time. That's why I'm going to make you look at every single thing we ate.
Chicken and veggie empanadas, spicy tuna tostados (with a habanero sauce and avocado relish), wood fire grilled salmon and veggies, and a mountain of tenderloin stuffed poblano peppers (with ancho rice, roasted red peppers, black beans, caramelized onions, jack cheese, roasted corn, red chile sauce, and poblano cream).

 

And to top it all off, an ancho brownie with caramel sauce and tequila whipped cream. Tequila! Whipped! Cream!

I'm still drooling at the memory....um. Anyway. Where was I? Right, more photos. We started mocking up the bus interior with some scrap wood, because practice makes perfect.

This was probably the most exciting part - the couch (bench? settee? sofa?) and fold-out bed.

And finally, we spent last weekend at Folly Beach. Kyle was volunteered for two shifts but I only volunteered for the afternoon, so in the morning I wandered around taking photos. With my eight year old point-and-shoot. Which apparently has smears all over the lens.

In the afternoon, we were both in the water aiding surfing experts who were guiding wheel-chair bound people through the waves. It was awesome.

And that wraps up our mega-month. I don't think things will be slowing down at all this Fall, so we just need to focus on balance, and only burn the candle at both ends when we really have to.