A Fun-Filled Fall Weekend

We started the weekend off eating these for breakfast:

The new Cooking Light had a recipe for homemade cinnamon rolls based on a famous Chicago recipe. They were quite delicious, especially with the leftover pumpkin-cream cheese icing I had from some crappy cupcakes (the cake part was crappy, not the icing).

With cinnamon roll fuel, my mom, Chris, and I took the dogs for a walk/hike at Fort Bellefountaine. It was a lovely day for a walk. The dogs enjoyed it so much, especially since they are able to be off-leash the majority of the walk there.

Already panting

My mom and Jackson (who was trying his best to stay out of the water).

Chris and Ollie (who is getting to be a water-loving dog!).

My boys in front of the Missouri River.

After walking the dogs, Chris and I drove across the river to Illinois for some apple picking in Grafton. We passed the Piasa (above).

On our way out to the apple orchard, we passed the pumpkins that are looking close to ready for picking!

Chris enjoying a Jonathan apple.

We tried the Golden Delicious, which were, as Chris called them, "Golden Tasteless."

After apple-picking Chris and I had to scurry back to my parents' house to pick up the dogs, take them home, get in the shower to get ready for the symphony!

Before the symphony we ate at the Schlafly Tap Room. Schlafly is a locally brewed beer that is quite delicious (especially their current pumpkin!). While there, we shared dessert -- Sticky Toffee Pudding, which is amazingly delicious. What was even more amazing than the taste was the SIZE!! I swear, this "piece" of cake was more like a loaf.

Then we headed over to Powell Symphony Hall for The Blue Planet Live.

Beautiful interior of they St. Louis Symphony hall.

The Blue Planet Live was really awesome. The symphony orchestra played the soundtrack to the original BBC production "The Blue Planet" which is a documentary about the Earth's oceans. It was kind of a bittersweet, at times outright sad/depressing, account of the Planet's sea. I learned that Killer Whales/Orcas are ass holes. I will spare you the reasons why, because it was pretty sickening to watch. But, being that this was the first time I'd been to the symphony since elementary school field trips, this was a wonderful way to be reintroduced to live symphonic music!

On Sunday I took my mom for her first pedicure for her birthday. She really enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to see Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo. It was ok. Not exactly what we were expecting (we expected more along the lines of his previous films such as Spirited Away).

I forgot to tell you all what the BIG delivery was last Thursday, as well as a recap of how the IVF training went. I am going to summarize quickly, because I need to go pack for Chicago.

Our BIG delivery was a new, KING SIZED pillow top bed!! It is awesome, and awesomely big. Now Chris, Ollie, Wembley, and I can ALL fit on the bed together.

IVF training was very informative. At times it was also encouraging. The Dr. made it sound like at my age it would be very unusual for it not to work within 3 tries. So, I am hopeful. The bad news was that I am not as close to starting the process as I thought. I have to go through a whole month of suppression shots first (where they shut down my ovaries so that I don't ovulate) before I can start the next month's stimulation shots (where they try to get me to produce a ton of eggs for harvest). So, it's looking like, if everything even goes according to plan and without issues, I won't be doing egg retrieval and egg transfer until middle to late November. :(