Bon Appétit

I have been cooking. Haven't posted about it in awhile. But rest assured, I have been cooking. Some of my recent feats have been chocolate chip cookies, mannicotti, spaghetti and meatballs, pork stew with parsnips and butternut squash, apple cake, and that's about all I can think of right now. Sunday night's meal was Boeuf a la bourguignonne (AKA beef burgundy). It's a dish I have been wanting to make for a long time - just never got around to it. I was inspired to make it after finally seeing Julie & Julia this past Saturday night. Each of them make the dish in the movie and I decided it was time to give it a try. It is not a terribly difficult dish. It just requires some extra steps and care to develop the rich flavor. I also had the opportunity to use my Le Creuset dutch oven - always a pleasure to use.

Fall

Fall is the busiest time of year for us (especially me), as evidenced by the lack of blogging... It's a new school year, a new football season, and a new holiday season. And we have been making the best of it all!

I have been busy with my teaching assistant activities as well as my own course load. But, I still made time for fun. I took another pottery class - actually it was the same pottery class I took over the summer, but still lots of fun. I've also been spending extra time on campus, running. No, not running gels or samples (which I have been doing :), actual running. I even did my first 5K in October. Matt and I are training for our first half-marathon - 13.1 miles. A little scary...

In October, we celebrated Mom's 50th birthday at Epcot Food & Wine Festival. We had a lot of surprises for her and she had a great time. To kick-off the weekend, we went to the Polynesian Luau Dinner - they had great food and fire dancing. What more could you want! Afterwards, we went monorail bar-hopping. Not sure why we never thought of it before... We just hopped on the monorail and hit the bars at each hotel. It was a lot of fun. Will definitely do it again. The next day we surprised her with Kelley's 50th custom shirts - each unique in design with photos and captions - and we did the F&W Fest. One of our best ever!

We also recently joing the Gainesville SCUBA Club. First time in several years Gainesville had a SCUBA Club and we attended the inaugural meeting *exciting*. They have a meeting and an outing once a month. This month we went to Devil's Den - haven't been there since our check-out dives. But unlike our check-out dives, I carried 2 tanks! It was a short distance, but I did. The SCUBA workouts have been paying off :) This past week, for the second Club meeting, we attended a spearfishing seminar. Not sure how I feel about spearfishing yet, but Matt is excited about it. He wants the JBL 53" sawed-off magnum speargun. Maybe Santa will bring him one.

As for football season, this is my 11th consecutive year of season football tickets! So, we've been hitting the home games. And for our away game of the season we went to the SC game. We took a bus trip to Columbia, SC with the Fighting Gators Touchdown Club to cheer on the Gators. Always a great time! Matt has been busy with his Fantasy team. He will have to comment on that as I don't know much about it. He did say today 'fantasy football is the bane of my existance' - so I do not think he is having a great season.

And the holidays... We are hosting Thanksgiving this year. We are still finalizing the menu and gameplan. it will be good times. We will start decorating the house for Christmas soon. And Matt has been getting together MANY Christmas movies for us to watch this season. And for New Year's, we will go up to Georgia with some friends and visit the family. Can't wait!!