FALL IS HERE!

Fall has finally arrived in California. The temperature has dropped during the night to around 50 fahrenheit meaning that its particularly cold in the mornings and in the evenings. The daytime temperature can still reach into the 80s fahrenheit so it can still feel pretty warm. Some Californians are complaining that its cold and don't understand why we can still be wearing shorts but I'm making the most of it! Having said that it is lovely to put jeans on again and find something vaguely snuggly to wear. 

As the temperature began to change back in September I had begun to think about decorating some of the house for fall. The trip back to England postponed the decorating and since we've been back its taken me longer than I had planned. However at last it is finished!

Our beautiful homemade wreath greets you as you come through the door. It was trickier to make than anticipated but I think it looks rather good now. The hanging of the wreath was also a bit of a drama as our door is made of some kind of compressed wood meaning that we couldn't just bang a nail in to hang it. Thankfully I had a resident engineer who found a way around it! 

In lieu of a fireplace our sideboard has become the focal point in the living area and will be decorated numerous times. The lack of foliage around here has driven me to desire lots of orange inside. It gives the impression the leaves are changing colour and autumn is here, even if outside doesn't match up. 

One thing about fall the Americans do well is pumpkins! There are pumpkins everywhere and there is pumpkin flavoured food and beverages everywhere! Its amazing and I'm loving it. The mini munchkins are probably my favourite of the pumpkins, although the white one is pretty too. 

The last section of the house to have something fall added to it is the bookcase, but this takes some explanation. We have created a 'thankful tree'. The original idea came from here. The basic idea is that every day during November you write down one thing that you are thankful for on a little card (in our case the gold spotty ones) and then tie it to the tree. Hopefully through the month you will build up a greater appreciation of God's blessings in your life. As thanksgiving isn't done in England, Andrew was somewhat hesitant but I convinced him to do it, mainly because he had to track down a giant branch which amused him. 

So there we go, fall is here! Now I better go have a pumpkin spiced something or other....
H

MACINTOSH MONDAY

I'm sure you've heard me mention the name Winston before. He is our next door neighbour's British bulldog. He is hilarious. Well this week our next door neighbour and Winston will be moving to Ohio. Poor old Macintosh will be left without a playmate and poor old Andrew will be without a train buddy. 

Yesterday became a bit of a farewell occasion as we hung out together and finished up the evening tucking into some barbecue. The two dogs are hilarious together because poor old Winston can't keep up with Mac so he just uses his sheer weight to stop Mac from running around. He simply squashes him! This in turn winds Macintosh up and results in him making his hideous baying sound to try and put Winston off.

We wanted to capture the two of them together, but it was a little tricky. Here are some of the shots we got!

Macintosh is definitely going to miss Winston. Let's hope another cool dog moves in next door.

H

FAMILY PORTRAITS

Our family are the coolest. Take a look....

Can't wait until we head back to England again. I miss their faces lots....
H

THE LITTLE MAN

Warning I am going to be getting a bit sappy in this post, because seriously this little man is awesome!

Now that you have the warning out of the way I am allowed to be as gushing and sappy as I want, but I mean seriously once you've seen this little guy there's really no holding back. He is gorgeous. 

Blog friends meet Elisha James. 

Isn't he the most darling little boy you have ever met! I mean I may be biased as his Auntie but seriously, this little dude steals your heart. His little hands with the tiny finger nails. The gorgeous dark hair. His little frown. The cutest of outfits that he gets put in. Oh gosh I could go on!

We were so glad to be able to sneak back to England and meet him whilst he was still small and snuggly. I held onto him for the maximum amount of time per day, only letting go for the necessary things like feeding and travelling safely in his car seat. I loved just snuggling with him, letting him hold my finger, watching him attempting to smile at me (no it wasn't wind) and just generally falling more in love with him. 

                                    

 

We went out a few times whilst we were there and Andrew became rather obsessed with pushing him in the pram. Apparently its great fun. He did get carried away at times, but look he's generally quite happy!

As well as snuggling in with Elisha myself it was lovely to see him with his parents and watch that little family. So much love.

So little one, we love you so much and can't wait until the next time we get to snuggle. Don't grow up too fast!

Auntie H x 

OUR GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND

Finally I'm getting around to writing about our trip home. As we have been in the US for 5 months we now have a pretty good idea of things we missed back home in England. So whilst catching up with everyone we also wanted to do a few of the things we missed. What did we miss you ask? Well, here's what we missed...

Fish and chips! My goodness the British really do them best so we made sure that the first full day we were in England involved fish and chips. It was so worth the 5 month wait.

Old towns with a bit of history. American has some older bits but still nothing like the history contained in England. So we made sure that whilst we were home we visited a few lovely old towns. The two you can see here are St Albans and Bath, both places we used to go a lot. I just love the way they look. It probably helps that they are both upper class places!

Roaring fires. Whilst being in the states over the summer period we have barely needed cardigans or jumpers (sweaters for my American friends) so the idea of heating seemed ridiculous. But as the Pinterest pages filled up with autumnal cosy scenes we both began to yearn for a good log fire. So naturally we convinced my not-at-all-cold parents to have a fire in October, something unheard of in the Keble household!

Lincoln. Our first married home. We loved being back there for a day to see the sights and just pretend that it was a normal day. It really did feel like we were going to finish up in town and then swing back to number 52 to sleep. Well it felt like that up until we drove away. We love that city.

And lastly we also just missed familiar things. For example, shopping in Sainsburys and knowing what everything is called, or drinking coffee out of actual mugs in coffee shops instead of takeaway cups. So here's a few final pictures of familiar things that made the trip home feel like home.

Overall we loved the trip and can't wait for the next one. Hopefully it'll be longer and we'll get to see more people. 

H

MACINTOSH MONDAY

Just got back from an epic expedition to the top of Rosamond Mountain (not really called that but its next to Rosamond so it would make sense). Myself and Mac scaled the south west face. Obviously the weather was hot and sunny and it is only 3100 feet so we didn't need oxygen. We didn't face much difficulty apart from fending of a very small lizard (well it just ran off) and having the humiliation of being overtaken by a jogger. We reached the peak with incredible views across the whole valley, south to Palmdale, north towards Mojave and Tehachapi.  You could see a long train in the distance but from our view it looked tiny.

After a brief pause at the top and a round of imaginary champagne we set of back down the hill (oops I mean mountain.) Overall it was a good 2.5 hour walk which we definitely will be doing again. 

Mac is now exhausted and is now fast asleep and will be for quite a while I think.

A