a weekend at Pemberley

Before I moved to the D.C. area, one of my best friends, Sara, and I joked about naming her family's home "Pemberley", after the peaceful rural retreat in Pride and Prejudice. I would spend the weekdays at my own more urban home, and after a long week of work, join her at Pemberley, her "country estate" for a weekend of leisure.

This past weekend, just in time for the glorious arrival of Autumn, I did just that! Sara graciously invited me to her home to spend the weekend, and it was WONDERFUL. I brought an overnight bag with me to work on Friday and then met her at home, where we enjoyed a delicious dinner that we all helped prepare, consisting of avocado, tuna, and vegetable sushi, seaweed salad, and some un-matching but delicious hors d'oeuvres of hummus and tzatziki with crackers and bread. Yum!

The next day, we did some lovely outdoorsy autumnal things like go fishing at Little Hunting Creek:

Go to a pumpkin and mums sale to buy pumpkins to carve, mums to decorate the front door, and dry corn and a hay bale to make an autumnal scene in the front yard of Sara's house:

Drink mulled cider w/rum and carve pumpkins out on the patio to put outside on Halloween:

And make s'mores and toast marshmallows in a fire pit outside, while listening to Sara's brother play guitar:

What a perfectly relaxing, beautiful, delightful weekend!