The Friday Five - Favorite Fall Things

It's no question, this is my absolute favorite time of year.  I love everything about the last third of the year, but here are a few of my most favorite things!

Cool Weather

I looooove the fall weather.  Even though it was a balmy 83 degrees when I went out for my evening run, by all measure, that is a major cool down in Texas.  Beautiful mornings with low humidity and comfortable, if not a little chilly evenings are on their way.  I don't even mind when the days get shorter.  In fact, I kind of like it!

Pumpkins!

I am not a fan of pumpkin spice everything, but I do love me some pumpkins.

I usually have a big display near my front door in October and November and Louis and I tend to hit up as many pumpkin patches as possible.  We will make our tenth visit to one of them this year! Even though (sadly) the Big Orange Pumpkin Patch changed locations, it still appears to be the same premise and you can bet we will be there.

Fall Holidays

It's no secret that Halloween and Thanksgiving are my number one holidays!  I love that they are stress free...no worries about gifts or extravagant decor (although I do decorate one crazy lit Christmas tree!).  They are all about the good things.  Family.  Friends.  Food.  There is always so much to be thankful for.

So much turkey....and well, because stuffing.

I love Thanksgiving Eve...cooking up a storm in my kitchen.  Making homemade pumpkin and apple pie.  Roasting a delish turkey.

It's just my favorite.

The Fall Colors

While the fall colors in Texas are by no means even close to what they are in Minnesota, we still get some color here.

Ok...this is not Texas, but that is one cute kid!

More Free Time!

While there is often too little of it, I took a quarter off from grad school and have more than I have had in the last 3 years.  It makes me excited to be done with school next fall.  I am enjoying some extra time to paint the garage full of furniture I have accumulated (there will be no graphic to show this hot mess) and do some organization around my house (although little of that has been done).  I've had so much more time to run and that gets high praise in my book! Most of all, I love the extra time I've had with family.

What do you love about fall?

Big thanks as always to Courtney @Eat, Pray, Run DC, Mar @ Mar on the Run and Cynthia @You Signed Up For What? for the Friday Five Link-Up!