Fall in Love

On Friday Hoi Polloi hosted a guest chef - my mom! She offered to make a Mexican dinner to mark our new evening hours - and it was a huge hit! We got a big (for us) crowd for dinner and the reviews of the food were raving. It was a little stressful in the kitchen (now we know where the saying "Too many cooks in the kitchen" comes from), but once we got our system down things were running smoothly. The menu included cheese stuffed broccoli and cauliflower patties, chiles rellenos, and taquitos de papa. Each dinner came with a vegetable soup, rice, beans and dessert (baked plantains or bananas and cream). It was delicious. She may even come back to cook regularly!


So the new hours at the cafe are going well - except that it has really cut into our time together as a couple. It didn't sound like too drastic of a change initially - one more day and couple hours at the end of each day - but that all adds up to another 27 and a half hours per week of open time. Add on top of that my family being back in town and it's meant less time for jb and I to spend together.

Well, today jb woke me up and asked if I wanted to join her for a drive. I assumed it would be one of our usual drives - aka running errands - but jb had a very special day in store for us. We collected Talula and the picnic that jb packed and piled into the car and we were off. Apparently Lu really wanted to be in this first picture:


For our first stop - Talula wasn't invited.


I've been craving donuts like crazy lately, so jb did some research about where to find the best donuts in the tri-state area :) And they are AMAZING.


We drove to Brady's Run County Park to enjoy the leaves, but started by enjoying the donuts. jb's not usually much of a sweets person, but I think she enjoyed them, too. Here she is double fisting.


After donuts we set off for a walk through the leaves. It was perfect. The sun was warm, the shade was cool, the leaves were gorgeous colors and falling magically all around us. We held hands and watched Talula having the time of her life.


As thrilled as we were with the day - I think Talula was on the verge of exploding with puppy happiness. She ran ahead of us with such a bounce in her step and her ears flopping we couldn't help but laugh.




To top it all off, on our way home we stopped at a farmer's market by the side of the road and picked out a few pumpkins. By the end of the day we had a pooped puppy. (And I was pretty tuckered out myself.) It was such a great day - and so appreciated since it's felt like we've had to steal moments together lately.