Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Our First Trip to the Catskills

Since there wasn't too much else to see that close to Albany, Amit found some other hiking to check out. The Catskills were just over an hour south of Albany, so we headed that direction to see what we'd find. He chose one destination in particular, because he knows how much I love waterfalls and it wasn't too long to accomplish in our limited amount of time.

We drove to the Catskills. 
Amit decided to go one way (and not listen to me),
but we ended up going over the Rip Van Winkle Bridge.
Check that off our bucket list.
After driving through some very small towns, we finally were at our destination.
The first falls we saw - 
I love hiking all year-round,
but I think fall can make for some of the best photos!
After a nice little hike, we arrived at our destination.
Kaaterskill Falls - The highest falls in NY
 


It was a nice little weekend getaway and the weather was perfect for hiking. It looks like we'll have to plan another trip to the Catskills to explore some more!

Just a reminder - these are definitely not all of the pictures I've taken on our hikes. I upload all of my pictures to our Shutterfly Share Site - http://lifeasthepatels.shutterfly.com/. It's a private site to store our photos, so if you have a Shutterfly account, you can use that to log-in and then request to join or you can just request that I send you our password. Once you're there, you can look at all of the photos that we've uploaded; they're organized into separate albums and sorted by date.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Meeting Halfway

It's been three weeks since I was back in NY to spend some quality time with Amit. It just so happened that Kirsten's baby shower was in Albany on Saturday. Since Albany is basically the halfway point between Rochester and Boston, we decided to spend the weekend hiking and hanging out there. Thanks to Sandy - today has given me one completed lesson plan and a finished blog post!

On Friday night, we ate dinner at Athos. Everyone knows how much Amit loves Greek food and man, did this place deliver! Our dinner was fantastic - we highly recommend this place. On top of the delicious food, we managed to be there for their weekly live Greek band. Amit was in heaven. Thankfully, we were planning to walk off all that delicious (and very Primal) food on Saturday. We drove to Thacher Park and had a great time exploring.

Don't forget - if you click on the picture, you can see a bigger version!

We had no idea what to expect from this...
...but the colors looked good!
Hiking along the cliffs made for some really great photos...
We were just walking along and found...
WATERFALLS?
Since we hadn't really researched the park and had no idea what to expect,
we were excited!
  
We kept hiking and found another one!
 We did a little exploring...
Then climbed up and looked at the view from above the waterfalls.

The morning hike was great! Our weekend hikes together are the one thing I miss the most. We missed having Emma with us, but she probably would have freaked out if she had to walk that close to falling water. Maybe one day we'll bring her back there.
I had a fun time at the shower. 
Kirsten was glowing! 
We're all very excited to meet this little guy!

After the shower, I met up with Amit.
The only thing more annoying than a 5 year-old begging for a balloon animal?
A 25 year-old asking when the balloon guy would stop at our table.
Thankfully he did.
(I think he knocked a glass over after this picture... Luckily, it was empty.)

It was a great Saturday in Albany. Next up, a trip to the Catskills!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Fall Craft Projects

Time to take a break from all of the homework and lesson planning to show you that aside from all of the fun that I have with my students, I'm actually doing my "normal" thing. Last year I made some decoupaged pumpkins and this year I knew I wanted to make some pumpkins, but felt like switching it up a little bit. Every time I feel like taking a break from my work (which usually is more often than I really should) I find new ideas on Pinterest.

I headed over to my friend Melissa's and we tried some fun new projects! Apologies for the not so great pictures - the camera is in NY.

Paperback Pumpkins
(Pinned from this blog.)
This craft was a little on the dangerous side...
 But we managed to finish it in one piece!
We used coffee to color the outside of the book,
then I added a light coat of metallic gold paint.
 Ta-da!
Just need to add some ribbon to the top.

We also made a burlap bubble wreath.
It was really easy and it looks so fun!
I can't wait to hang it up on our front door.
The only thing I'm still deciding - do I add some cute little gold or red berries?
This is the nearly-finished product.
Thanks to Hurricane Sandy,
I should be able to finish it tomorrow!

And my very latest fall decor item -
this awesome pumpkin canvas art.
Thank goodness Melissa has a Cricut machine - 
it made cutting out the letters so easy!
(The ribbon detail around the edges is my favorite part!)

I love all of my new fall decor and can't wait to put them up around the house! One other project that I did, but haven't taken pictures of is my chalkboard paint pumpkins. They look so good and I can't wait to draw some designs on them with my new chalk! Pictures will come, I promise! Once I'm actually home to do the decorating, I'll post a fall tour of the house and see all of my FINISHED creations in their proper places!

Sunday, October 21, 2012

More Hiking in Hudson

So part 2 of our weekend consisted of more hiking and this time, more waterfalls! On Saturday afternoon we did more hiking and managed to visit two more sports in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Our first stop was to try and see Bridal Veil Falls.
We were a little off and didn't see the falls, 
but we got some great pictures of the gorge.

Amit had some issues staying on his feet after lunch.

Check out the evidence.

Next we headed to Brandywine Falls.
The falls were beautiful and so were the trees!

Our last photos before Mom's camera died.
Going for a walk on the Rail Trail.


Well, the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. It was a beautiful weekend and we had so much fun hanging out with Ron and Mom. Hudson is just over 4 hours from Rochester, so it's the perfect place to meet up for a long weekend full of hiking. Hopefully we'll be able to spend a lot more weekends there! We're so glad that Ron and Mom found this place - we still have so much more of the park to explore!

Hanging out in Hudson

Over Columbus Day weekend, we headed to Ohio to spend a weekend hiking with Ron and Mom in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The colors were changing and the weather was perfect for hiking! We spent Saturday and Sunday exploring the park and enjoying the great little restaurants in the area.

We had to stop for a group shot!

The first waterfall we found.
(I think it had a name, but I can't remember it!)
Ron wanted a picture of all those stairs!

After our first hike,
we headed to Hale Farm and Village.
It was really quiet, but we got some great fall foliage shots!
 Not quite sure why,
but Amit wanted to make friends with the pig.
Mom crept up behind them to get this picture!
  Strolling through town.

By this time, I was starving, so we took a break for lunch. We had some great food (no pictures though) and some delicious beer (so I hear - yuck!) and were ready to venture out again!