great september fun

we've had such a busy september already, and it's not even our anniversary yet! i just wanted to share the fun things we've been doing.

first, last saturday, september 11, we went up to hampton beach for the annual seafood festival. i had never been to hampton beach before, and neither had lee (because it's fun--for those of you who know lee, you know that his parents scorn absolutely anything that could be perceived as fun...). it was everything kitch-y and cheesy that i expect a trip to the shore should be. beth, you would love it! there was the seafood festival, which was full of all the people of all stripes that you expect would be there, there was an arcade, a shooting gallery, and we when we were done having fun at all those places, we went up to a 3rd floor roof bar and just watched the waves below. i loved it!

of course, i forgot my camera so i have no pictures of myself eating crab and watermelon gazpacho and freshly made fried potato chips. i have no pictures of me creaming lee at ms. pac man or galaga (and they were only a quarter in the arcade! just like 1989!). i know that some of you may not realize this about me, but i am PASSIONATE about atari and old school arcade games. i played pinball, skee-ball, centipede. i want to go back for the arcade alone...

on our way up to new hampshire, we stopped in reading at a market i had heard about called natural food exchange. they have thousands of gluten free products! i got baguettes, some hard-to-find flours, and this pancake mix from king arthur that made the best pancakes i have ever had :)

anyway, the next day we went out to the 'burbs to visit our dear friends mike & maria and their lovely baby. we went to new england's largest oktoberfest at a german-american club in walpole. there were men in lederhosen and saurkraut--which is one of my FAVORITE foods...

fun german music...

and of course our friends' cute son :)

then this weekend, we rented another car to go apple picking. we ended up getting another cheap car for the whole weekend (thank you, enterprise weekend rates! yes--you can get a car for $9.99/day!!! sadly, zipcar cannot beat that...). so we also had a date night at route 1 mini golf. says it right there on their web site: yup, it's the home of the big orange dinosaur. it was another great time with mini golf, where yet again i won. lee has a hard time accepting my supremacy in sports such as these, but i had 2, count them, 2 holes-in-one! then we went to the arcade and played a couple of rounds of ice-ball (just like skee-ball, with heavier balls that are white), and then went to the dairy castle for soft serve.

the dairy castle is behind me, here.

and here's the ice-ball and then lee posing with our great prizes: stickers and some temporary tattoos :)

on sunday, we went to honey pot hill orchards for apple picking with our friend, allison. honey pot hill was a new place for us. i don't think i'll go next year. they have tv commercials and we just wanted to see what all the hubbub was about. it was MADNESS! but we got a lot of apples and had a good time.

here i am on a ladder picking.

and here's just 1 of honey pot hill's 3 parking lots. crazy!

but it was fun and i'm glad we could go. and i've already made some apple goodies: apple muffins for breakfast and today i had a tuna melt and i made the tuna salad with a nice crunchy apple, olive oil, lemon juice and just a touch of mustard. topped with swiss and grilled to perfection :)

yay for september!