Halloween at Falcons

Hello, hello! I hope you've all had a fabulous Halloween! All the festivities I participated in were through work and it was a blast.

Incase you don't know, I currently work at a retirement community for retired military officers and it is awesome. I've been there for 7 years now so I'm very active in participating in resident and employee activities. On Tuesday we had a Doggy Costume Halloween Show. Anyone with a dog could participate and would dress up their dog and head down to the Assisted Living area and strut their stuff on the runway. Here are some of our lovely participants.

Seriously, how cute are these dogs?! This wasn't at all a contest. It was something to make some of our assisted living residents smile and boy did it work.

Then on Thursday we did our employee Halloween party. We had a costume contest and a pumpkin carving contest. Our judges were a few or our independent living residents so we really had to impress. Here are some of the costumes of the day.

There were many, many more but these are the only ones I was able to get pictures of. It's super funny though because there were four different categories: scariest, funniest, prettiest and what is it. My friend and I were Buzz & Woody and decided to be in the What is it category because way too many residents asked us who we were. Yeah, we won. Apparently almost none of them had every watched Toy Story, who knew?

And for the pumpkin carving contest, here is what we had.

My pumpkin also won for the funniest category. Since I'm technically in the security department I decided to make a pumpkin with my manager in jail and our CEO as the warden. I must say, it was pretty funny. Don't worry, I got prior approval from the CEO before I stuck anyone's picture on a Mr. Potato Head. Here it is!

Seriously, this week at work was so fun. I also got many different ideas for future Halloween activities and am already excited for next year. -- I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and one as fun as I had!

And for a few side notes, I finally am off the Ipsy waiting list and will be receiving my first one this month. Also, the Starbucks red cups are out. I most definitely went and got my first Peppermint Mocha of the season. I can't wait to start blogging the heck out of this Holiday Season! Talk to you all soon.

Pumpkin Picks

In honor of October and Fall, I am going to start something I like to call Pinterest Picks. I may or may not have made that up, but it came in my head and I like how it sounded. So for October, here are some of my favorite Pumpkin Picks from Pinterest. Therefore, none of these pictures are my own, just ones that I found on Pinterest and loved. :)

I'm hoping to talk my boyfriend into recreating the photo of the couple at the pumpkin patch. He'll probably think I'm silly but hopefully he'll cave.

I seriously can not wait until I have a place of my own that I can decorate. I love holidays and decorating for them. I want an excuse to put soup inside a mini pumpkin, use pumpkins as plate holders, make pumpkin families and do whatever else I can possibly find on Pinterest. One of these days, it'll happen. But for now, I'll keep admiring!

First Four of Fall

Yes, my first official Fall post! Last Sunday was officially the first day of Fall but let's be real, we don't need a start date. It was Fall about three weeks ago. Football started, Fall decor was put on display, good TV is back and finally, the weather started to cool down.

So to honor the start of the season I'm going to share my first four favorites of Fall.

1. A week and a half ago I saw that Bath & Body Works had an online sale. $6 Fall favorites, 25% off your total and only $1 shipping. Say what?! I had been looking for the Fall body products in store but they kept telling me they didn't have them yet and only had the candles and soaps so far. I kept checking but no luck. So when I saw this deal online, I took advantage. Best part, I only paid $29 for all of this, which we clearly know is way more than that.

2. I'm sure by now you have seen the new M&M Pumpkin Spice. I actually found these about three weeks ago at Target when they were first putting them out. I knew that they were new but I didn't think too much of it. I got a bag and texted a bunch of my friends asking if they have seen them yet. As soon as I finished the first bag, I went back to Target and they were GONE and I know why. They are really, really good. The pumpkin spice flavor is subtle so it's not too overpowering. These M&Ms are exclusive to Target so I just had to keep checking back. I (obviously) found some and also got this adorable chevron cat tin to put them in. This find was in the wonderful $1-$3 section at Target.

3. Dark polish! Yay dark polish! Now I can throw on some darkness and not seem so emo. This color is Midnight Cami which is a dark, deep blue. I kept debating about which new colors to get because they also have some nice purples. So I decided to start with this and then next week I'll just switch to another. ;) I am still looking for some tips on how to keep your nail polish from chipping so quickly. A friend mentioned dipping your fingers in vinegar. Have you heard this before? Do you have any tips?

4. Fun socks, oh do I love fun socks! I have a huge collection of socks for any occasion. My boyfriend thinks I'm absolutely insane but that's ok. Unfortunately, I haven't found any new socks yet but I'm sure I will soon.

I could go on for a long time about my love of anything Fall but I won't, just yet. What kind of Fall favorites do you have? 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Talk to you all soon!

Beer, Bourbon & BBQ

Last weekend my boyfriend and I were driving by Reston Town Center and he pointed to one of their banners that said "Beer, Bourbon & BBQ" and said, "Do you want to go?" Of course! We bought our tickets from their website that said "60 Beers, 40 Bourbons + lots of BBQ" and prepared for a fun filled Saturday.

The website said the event would be rain or shine and the weather called for 40% rain. Of course we assumed and prepared for the other 60 percent and headed out to Reston Town Center. Tickets included a souvenir glass for drink trials. They closed off their big parking lot for the entrance, beer tents and some vendor tents. They also used a connecting hill for bourbon tents, more vendor tents, and game space.

Both glasses came like the one on the left. However the VIP area had a Marker's Mark tent who waxed the bottom of the glasses for you. I wasn't VIP but I met this super nice woman who said this was her second BB&B this year so she gave me her Marker's Mark glass.

We didn't play any Cornhole but I liked their customized boards. Plus, they didn't really have any major signs so I took this as an advantage to take a picture.

One of their sponsors was Big Idaho Potato had this awesome truck hanging out. But there were WAY too many drunk people running up to the Potato people asking if it their truck was a real potato. Really?

I'm really not sure why they had a mini train, but it was cute!

Yuengling had this mini trailer that people could enter to win. I'm not sure what someone would use it for because a child could barely sit in it comfortably.. but it was über cute and perfect for my nonexistent puppy.

They also had a stage where they had some bag pipe performers, bands and other entertainers. To the right is the beer tent.

The event was from 2-6 and by 3:30 there was a torrential downpour. EVERYONE tried squeezing under the tents but it really didn't change much. This was a panorama that I did of everyone cramming themselves under the beer tent. Lucky for us we were right next to Blue Moon so we kept getting refills until it was safe to leave. I thoroughly enjoyed their Pumpkin! 

I almost liked every drink I tried. I would say that's because I avoided all the ones I knew I wouldn't like, haha. They did have a pretty stocked drink menu and I made sure to get my $35 ticket's worth. 

Bourbon

Fireball Cinnamon Whisky - I'd try this before and I really like it. I like cinnamon in general!
Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka
Firefly Sweet Tea Bourbon - I've had the vodka many, many times before but this was my first time trying the bourbon
Firefly Cherry Moonshine - GROSS. This I did not like!
Skinnygirl White Cherry - They made it a mixed drink with crystal light lemonade and the whole thing just tasted like water.
Cruzan Passion Fruit Rum - This was really good.

Why some of these were listed under the Bourbon list when they are clearly not bourbon, I'm not sure. I wasn't complaining though. I also really wanted to try Firefly Apple Pie Moonshine but that went real quick and they didn't have more.

Beer

Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin - We were right next to Blue Moon when we were hiding from the rain so we got at least 10 refills. I know 10 sounds like a lot but please remember how small our glasses were. They also never filled them up all the way either.
Leinenkugel Octoberfest
Singha - We said "What? How do you say this?" The girl said "Sing-ha" - It's a pale lager from Thailand and it was pretty good.

Shiner Octoberfest
Harpoon Octoberfest
Brooklyn Octoberfest
Post Road Pumpkin

There were actually some other beers we tried that weren't on the list. I didn't bother to write them down because they had complicated names and I assumed they were on the website, but they're not. Oh well.

As far as the BBQ part goes, we didn't have any. The main food trial was in the VIP area but those tickets were $40 more. We knew there was no way we would try $40 worth of food, so we opted out. In the general area they did have a dead pig hanging out on a table where they had some guys cutting it open and giving out some meat. Trust me, I did not choose to try any of it. There were other food vendors there like a Greek food vendor, fried candy stand, and a popcorn stand. I most definitely bought a bag of kettle corn and brought it home with me.

Besides the horrible, horrible rain, we had a lot of fun. I would definitely attend next year, if they decide to return. I say that because this was their first year in Reston but I think they'll be back. I'm now looking forward to the Reston Town Center Oktoberfest the weekend of October 11th. I'm loving that each day that comes is becoming a prettier Fall day.  

Happy Sunday Funday! I hope you're all having a fun and relaxing day. Talk to you all soon!