College Friend Trip Favorites

Happy Friday!  And Happy Anniversary Kev!  We have some simple fun plans for today to celebrate 22 years :)  More on that later.

Today I'm going to recap a fun girl's trip that I went on last weekend.  I headed out of town with some of my favorite friends from high school.  We coordinated all of our schedules, made plans for all of our kids to be taken care of and headed to our old stomping grounds of Indiana University.    We all went to high school together and then headed to IU together.  We have been talking about making this trip happen for a long time. 

The Union building behind us.  And a cute 83 year old professor took this picture for us.  He adored IU and was so happy to talk to us about it.

I brought the snacks - a snackle box of gummy candies, popcorn, cheese popcorn and chocolate dipped pretzels.

I also surprised the girls with IU themed goody bags.  The bags reminded me of the striped pants the basketball team wears so I thought they were perfect.  I added in a fun square scarf and a personalized bracelet.  The girls loved their gifts.  Be sure and scroll all the way to the end - you're never going to believe the gift that my friend Kelly surprised me with.

We shopped and all found some cute stuff.

We all have fond memories of the Olive Garden - especially the never ending pasta bowls for college kids.  So we grabbed lunch at Olive Garden.

More shopping.  More relaxing in our room.  Then we headed to a local favorite Mother Bears Pizza.

It was amazing.

We headed down town for dessert at the Chocolate Moose.  They have their own version of blizzards call a BLIZZ.  I ordered an Oreo Blizz with homemade chocolate ice cream.  I'll dream of this for a long time.

We stayed up way too late catching up and walked over to breakfast at Lincoln Square.

Everything was delicious.  Especially that homemade biscuit and strawberry jam.

We headed to campus to restock our IU gear.  Everything was so cute.  The merch was extra cute after the IU football team winning the National Title this year.

The I in IU.

The campus, old buildings, giant trees, etc. are all so pretty.

We were all so thankful to get away and relive our favorite college spots.

My favorite souvenir - a new back to school teacher bag!

WOW WOW WOW!!  Remember how I said we were so bummed to miss out on the striped Trader Joe's totes??  Well my friend Kelly found me one!  I was so surprised and have already carried it several times.  It's such a cute size and pattern.

I hope you have a great weekend!  Linking up with Momfessionals

Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers!

It's an exciting time to be a Hoosier!  Indiana fans and residents are beaming with pride, IU apparel is flooding the streets and there is a buzz about Indiana football.  Music teachers are teaching the Indiana fight song and my students are all decked out in IU gear.  I never expected this to happen.  

IU has always been a basketball school.  Home of Bobby Knight. The movie Hoosiers and everything was all about basketball.  Bloomington is the perfect college town.  I loved my years there so much.  When I was a student, we enjoyed a Final Four run in basketball, Bobby Knight was fired and football wasn't on my radar.  And now it's all changed in a very short period of time.  IU football is king.  In Indiana and in the Big 10!?  It's the most surprising and exciting turn of events.  It'll be fun to see how the rules of college football adapt and change in the coming years with NIL $$, the transfer portal and so many changes.

The big game was a school night so we made plans to stay home and watch it.  The boys made decorations for the game - IU logos and bisons.  The bison mascot is something we're still getting used to after it's debut this season.  The boys LOVE him so it's been fun to embrace Hoosier the bison.

I made an IU charcuterie board for the big game.

We all sported red for the Hoosiers.

Olive made us a Crimson mocktail (Lemonade + cherry juice) to go with our game day appetizers.

Leo tried to convince our friends to love IU.  He says he's going to play football at IU and made me promise to come to all of his games.  I promised to be his biggest fan.  I also promised to sign him up for flag football as soon as he's old enough to play.

The game was close.  Miami kept coming back and IU would repsond.  It was a little stressful at times, but it was so much fun to see this team work together and fight for one more win.  Mendoza is an amazing QB and it's been so much fun to cheer for IU football.  The kids have it on their radar to make it to a game next season.  Yes, please!

Sign me up for all of the cute IU merch, celebrations and parades.  I loved hearing about so many friends making the trip to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl and then to Miami for the National Title Game.  It felt like the whole state stayed up late to cheer on the Hoosiers.  My students were worn out the next day.

How long is too long to leave up our candy cane Hoosier Christmas lights!?

Asking for a friend.

A season we will never forget!

Adventures in Apple Picking

One of our favorite Fall traditions is apple picking.  It's easy for the whole family to participate in, is fairly quick, is in a cute location and we all really enjoy it.  We have a favorite spot that we've been going to for years - Ditzler Orchard in Rosedale, IN.  It's about 25 minutes away and the drive through the country is really pretty.

Thanks to a very late frost in May, the apple picking season was greatly impacted.  Instead of allowing apple picking any day of the week from August through October, they are only offering u pick on the weekends.  The apple selection is much smaller than previous years, but that didn't stop us from having a great time.  Usually we have 3-4 apple varieties to pick from.  This year they had two rows of trees and only one type of apple - Golden Delicious - open for picking.  Kevin and I were a little bummed, but you know what, the kids did not even notice.  They didn't complain.  They had the best time.  I need to be more like them.

We woke up Saturday morning and headed off to the orchard.  No one got car sick and no one cried or complained.  Big wins for our family.  The weather was breezy with a slight chill in the air.  Fall perfection!

The nicest family runs this orchard.  They were still giving tractor rides, had tons of pumpkins, mums, yummy treats and apple goodies.  The staff were wearing masks, Kevin wore a mask in the store to pay and the rest of us stayed outside, kept our distance and did not wear masks.  It worked out great.

The big kids each got an apple basket to fill along with instructions on how to pick the very best apples - rough surface = sweet apple.  Smooth surface = not quite ready.

I was really surprised that Leo was interested in the apple trees.  He loved touching the apples and brushing the leaves with his hands.  An older lady commented that even the baby loved apple picking.  It was a really sweet bunch of firsts for him - tractor ride, apple picking, orchard visit and pumpkin patch.

The kids loved the tractor ride.

When we told Olive we were going apple picking she said, "I've got the perfect dress for apple picking!"  She was right.  I love this dress on her.

I wore Leo in the Ergo and he was a happy camper.

We decided it was too early to grab pumpkins, but that didn't stop us from scoping them out.

Pink pumpkins!?!  They were so pretty.

Popsicle pumpkins according to Fletcher.

We'd love to make it back to the orchard another time or two before apple season is done.  We'll definitely head back to pick out pumpkins once October gets here.

Do you have any orchards near you?

What are your favorite apple recipes - please share them with me in the comments because we have a ton of apples to eat!

Lake Life

We went to a really fun 4th of July party at my friend Whitney's house last weekend.  It's always a highlight of our Summer to head to her family cabin and enjoy the day.  We tried some new things this year, enjoyed a giant potluck and games and then had to head home early without seeing fireworks.  Crazy Summer storms rolled in!

We headed to meet up with friends and were ready to enjoy a day at the lake.

The kids LOVED the lake, the slide and we tried something new: TUBING!  Our kids had never been on a boat on a big lake before so that was our first adventure.  They seemed to really like it.  Then my friend offered to let us go tubing.  I hesitated at first.  I wasn't sure I would enjoy it.  Ha!

My kids are super brave and almost always willing to try new things.  Kevin's the same way.  So I put on my big girl pants + my life jacket and got in the tube.  I trusted my friend who was driving the boat to be careful with us and my kids were so excited.  We did a couple laps around the lake and called it quits to make sure that Fletcher got motion sick.  It was such a fun time!  We were all brave together and were so thankful for the fun Summer memories.

So all that to say... sometimes you should say YES to things that scare you!  It'll be fun!

I promise!!

Noodles for the grown ups and puddle jumpers for the kids.

Kevin & the kids loved the boat slide.  Kevin took turns being the Slide Dad - helping kids go down the slide and catching them at the bottom.

Boating Adventures.  Kevin had to hold onto Fletcher and I had to keep an eye on Olive.  We were thankful for the bucket seats on the tube :)

Everyone brought something to share.  It was so good!

Tons of festive food.

And TONS of toads.  The kids loved collecting them in cups and letting them go :)

Game time!
Throw the pool noodle through the hula hoop!  I held a friend's baby while Kevin helped with games.

Sack races.

Silly string battle.

Face paint.

Tug of War!

Such a fun, hot, humid day!!

Happy Friday!!  Hope you have a great weekend :)

Make sure you go and enter my 8 year bloggy birthday Favorite Things Giveaway from Monday!!  A winner will be drawn tonight!!

It's time to link up with my favorite blogging buddies for High Five for Friday.  Join us with a few different blog posts and be sure to look around to find some new blog friends

Becky @  By BMG Blog
Della @ Della Devoted
Tif @ Bright on a Budget
Whitney P @ Come Home for Comfort

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