Happy Halloween!

We've had a fun-filled Halloween weekend! I carved my pumpkin last week and lit it for the kids Trick or Treating tonight :) They were cute. Even the one that said to me as he looked into the candy bowl, "You better have what I like." My response: "OK, do I?" Him: "Yep. No peanuts. Thanks."



Willow doesn't love Halloween. She's not a fan of dressing up and she gets all worked up when strangers come to the door. Plus we don't let her eat candy. No wonder she doesn't like it.



I must say...Halloween isn't my favorite holiday either. Our neighbors were way more into it :)



This Halloween was a good one though - I got out of dressing up this year (yes!) and Lizzie was visiting!

We had fun despite the fact that Mother Nature was NOT kind to us. It was rainy and cold for the entire weekend! Pretty much the worst weather we could have. It snowed a little bit too. Poor Lizzie. Matt tried to talk us into hiking on Sunday during a break in the rain but, lucky us, it was a little too muddy to make it far.

SO - we spent a lot of time hanging out enjoying indoor activities :) Willow was excited that we were around - she loves her Lizzie.



Besides snuggling, we also supported some Vermont businesses this weekend. We went shopping on Church Street, out to dinner with some new Vermont friends (that we met when we moved here thanks to Lizzie), and enjoyed some local wine and beer.

Wine Tasting at Shelburne Vineyards...trying to drink enough to keep herself warm.









We spent one night at the lake (our last of the season - so sad!) where we played a really intense game of Monopoly. Matt had never played before and we saw a side of him that wasn't pretty. Don't let this picture fool you. It looks like everyone has plenty of money - Lizzie actually got a little greedy early on and erected a bunch of houses she couldn't afford. When she ran out of money later Matt didn't take pity on her like I did and give her a break on rent. She lost it all :(



Before Lizzie went home, we took a quick tour of the Magic Hat Brewery. Magic Hat is a crazy place and we visited on Halloween, making it even more strange. Their beer is delicious though! Here are some pics of the factory. Every beer they make right now comes out of this one factory here in Burlington.











We did a little tasting afterwards - they always make an "Odd Notion" beer. This season it was a Green Apple - we both liked it so if you can find it in your area get some! The tour guide told us that one time the Odd Notion was a garlic beer.....complete with a whole clove of garlic in each bottle. Hmmmm. She said it didn't sell too well.

Lizzie made it up here right on time. Score another one for the Travelers. Including my easy travels to Grace's wedding and my dad's flight delay (a point that I decided the airlines won) that makes the score:

Travelers - 10
Airlines - 2

Lizzie thank you for visiting Vermont on a rainy and cold weekend! Miss you already!
xoxo

Green Product Update

I'm interrupting my fall posts to write a little update on my green/organic product search. I'll be honest - it has taken hours and hours of searching on the Internet and then looking up products I find on Skin Deep before finally ending up with a few products I'm happy with. Little did I know that I'd turn into one of these crazy all natural product-loving people - I used to think they were strange.

For years and years and years this bottle was my best friend. I mean, it doesn't look glamorous, but it works miracles on keeping skin clear. I never went anywhere without it.



Now I can't look at that bottle without seeing this in my head instead.



UG. I don't want to talk smack on my old friend but that's what hours of Internet searching will do to you. Maybe I have too much time on my hands. Anyway...I want to share what I've learned to spare those of you that might care *just a little bit* about this stuff all that wasted time.

First - I've found it was way easier for me to start small by switching out cleaning products and so called "beauty" or cosmetic products once I ran out of my normal one. Remember, I'm thrifty. Matt would call me cheap. So this was one way to make myself feel a little better. Anyway - while I know these products are more expensive, you only have to buy them every once in a while. I'd love to eat all organic food but we'd go broke! I already spend too much money at the grocery store. There's a reason they call it the Wealthy Living market here.

On to my pearls of wisdom...

I love all cleaning and soap products from 7th Generation (a Burlington based company!) and Ecover (I've already professed my love for this brand). They both make all sorts of stuff and they're sold all over.

Websites:
I've found 2 great websites for green products...
Natural Living for Women - This gives lots and lots of information but has some products too if you click around a little.
Spirit Beauty Lounge - This one is an awesome place to find products. I love everything I've ordered from them so far and they send lots of fun samples + give great coupons if you sign up. The brand I've tried is Acure Organics - they smell good and they come in a really cool looking bottle.

If you want in-person advice, I've found the employees in our (W)Healthy Living grocery story here are super helpful - if you have a natural market go and ask them! Beware - all these stores carry all kinds of expensive product lines that claim they're organic but are still pretty toxic (at least according to Skin Deep when I look them up). The girls told me that they have to offer a variety. I just started on some organic shampoo made with "Neem" that they recommended. I'm a little afraid that I'll end up looking like Monica from my favorite episode of Friends.



One other tip - not all products have to be "organic" to be low in toxicity. I looked up some regular old grocery store brands to see which had the lowest level of toxicity and found lots of stuff! For example, the all natural deodorant just didn't do it for me. Yuck. What's the point of putting something on if it doesn't work? PLUS paying all that money for it. I'm too cheap for that.

The winner?



That's right. BAN. Unscented roll-on. Again - not glamorous but it does the trick. My parents have been using this stuff for years and I just never appreciated it's greatness. Sorry Mom.

OK enough on green products - more pics to come after this weekend. I have another traveler trying to make her way up tomorrow - wish her luck!

Bolton Valley

Except for the Nor'easter, we've had pretty great weather this fall. It's definitely colder than fall in Virginia - but mid-50s don't feel too bad! Today it's 68 degrees and I'm actually feeling a little bit hot - I already put down all our storm windows!

We're done lots of hiking recently so I'm working on a few posts for you - here's the first!

A few weeks ago we hiked up to the top of Bolton Valley. This resort is only about 25 minutes from our house and is where we purchased ski passes for this winter. Matt likes to "check out the terrain" before winter comes so this was an exploration mission :)

The road leading up to the resort had some beautiful color....



We hiked up the access road...





Which was a little steep...



But it didn't seem to bother Willow much!



We climbed to the top of the highest lift.





And checked out the trail map....



The views were amazing!







I know the next time we're in that same spot it will be MUCH colder and MUCH whiter - hopefully!

I'll be back soon....

Fall

Dear Fall,

Please stick around for another couple of weeks. I'm not ready for the cold, bleak winter and I'd really like my friend Lizzie to see how beautiful you are when she visits next weekend. Especially because my camera isn't good enough to really capture it.

xoxo

P.S. Don't worry, I wasn't the one driving when I took most of these pictures.

Nor'easter

SO we survived our first Nor'easter. WOW. We had strong wind and driving rain from Thursday night until Saturday morning. 60 mph gusts out near the lake house. Good thing the dock was out or we would have been diving in Lake Champlain looking for missing wood panels. I bet these boat owners wish they had taken it out of the water....

Most people hunker down and ride out these storms inside. Unfortunately for us, we have a young and energetic dog that doesn't know or care about Nor'easters. Friday afternoon you would have found me and Willow at the dog park, with me trying to keep my umbrella from turning inside out, feeling a little like the man below. I was miserable. She didn't seem to notice.

Courtesy of the Washington Post

We did venture out Friday night as well for dinner with some new friends. After dinner we walked next door where an unusual bluegrass band was playing. I wish I had a tape of them....They covered songs from Justin Beiber to Journey, giving them a bluegrass twist, all while wearing karate outfits. Very entertaining.

The Nor'easter brought mostly rain to the valley, but snow to the mountains. Matt, of course, was ecstatic. He couldn't wait for the skies to clear up so we could hike on Sunday. We drove to Lincoln, VT to hike Mt. Abraham (one of only a few VT peaks above 4,000 feet). We hoped there would be a little bit of snow up top (so we brought a few extra layers) and Matt could hardly wait!

Here was our view on the way down...Beautiful fall!



The hike started out pretty nice too.



After a few minutes, we started seeing a little snow. Snow + mud made me glad I decided to wear my hiking shoes rather than my running ones.





After the first mile, things looked like this. I started to worry that maybe we weren't prepared enough...



We quickly reached snow like this that only got deeper as we made our way toward the top! As Matt says, it was "full-on winter" up there. I knew at that point that we really were unprepared. We really could have used crampons, hiking poles, and waterproof pants.



It was pretty fun to see this kind of weather and Willow LOVES the snow, so we had a good time hiking up. Check out the great conditions at the top. You can't read the sign but it says "Mt. Abraham - 4,006 feet." Do I look cold yet?



Coming down went well about 2/3 of the way. The rocks were a little slippery and, as I told you, I fall at least once so it wasn't unusual that I lost my footing a few times. It's not usually a big deal, but on this hike the first fall caked my pants and thin cotton mittens in mud so Matt had to listen to some pouting the rest of the way. I wish now that I had a picture of that but I was in no mood at the time. Oops! I apologized to him later :)

As much as I like winter, it was really nice to come back to the sunny fall at the bottom! Hope you had a good weekend. Happy Monday!