Flashback to Fall

(As I've mentioned, my poor camera bit the dust back in October. As as result, there's been a bit of a dearth of pictures in my posts (though I'm doing what I can to get around that). I finally got around to getting the pictures of my poor no-longer-with-us camera, so I can post about a really great weekend Ed and I had with his brother and sister in law. )

One of our goals, that I believe I've mentioned on here, is to take advantage of all the Bay Area has to offer this year, since we don't know where the future will take us. In light of this, Keven and Noemi came out from Visalia mid-October to join us at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival. 

We decided to help out with the nightmare that was sure to be parking, we would head over the hill early and partake in a 5k race that was being held that morning. 

We got there at the perfect time to snag some free parking, pick up our complimentary race schwag (i.e. a shirt and a very cute pumpkin), and cheer for the 10kers and the kids, whose races were before ours.

Before we knew it, it was time to jump in the group and get ready for our race to start. With a kiss, Ed headed to the front. I've often wondered what it would be like to be him in a race, toeing the front line with the other leaders (he would end up placing 5th overall, 1st in his age group, with a respectable time of 18:29). I headed to the back and ran with Keven and Noemi for a bit, before deciding to actually race this and pull ahead. 

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where my camera bit the dust. I pulled it out to take the picture above, but when I pressed the power off button, the lense wouldn't go back in. It just made and unhappy sound and gave me an error message. 

So, I just have those views in my memory - running along the bluffs with gorgeous ocean views. It was probably for the best, since it let me focus on running fast, to get the time of 30:32, definitely one of my faster times in a while. Keven and Noemi finished their first 5ks that day as well!

After the run, we changed into some "real" clothes, including our race shirts, and headed into the festival to enjoy some pumpkin inspired treats. 

We began with a pumpkin shake, feeling good that we were helping out a high school volleyball team, who were making the shakes. It tasted exactly like pumpkin pie, in a shake. 

We enjoyed seeing the giant pumpkins, and all the crafts, though Ed and I were a bit disappointed that the Pumpkin festival didn't actually have that many pumpkins. We had envisioned more a pumpkin patch with craft booths, rather than the craft portion of a farmer's market, which was what this reminded me of. 

Still, it was fun. I got a beautiful glass blown pumpkin Christmas ornament (that currently looks spectacular on our tree), and we had pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread, garlic fries, and roasted turkey sandwiches. It made us feel glad that we had at least burned a few calories that morning. 

Mid afternoon, we headed home, glad to be crossing one more bay area specialty off of our list!