Friday Favorites

Hello and welcome to my Friday Favorites! Today I am linking up with Andrea!

1. A few weeks ago I made some raspberry sauce and a white almond cake with raspberry curd filling! It was delicious! We had a 5-pound bag of raspberries that had thawed and then refrozen, which resulted in a 5-pound frozen solid block of berries that wouldn't come apart. We had intended on using them for smoothies, but that wasn't going to work any more so I managed to get some of it apart and made the sauce and curd with it. It worked out really well! 

2. I picked these flowers up from Trader Joe's for the month. I was glad to find some that were kind of fall-colored!

3. On Wednesday, my mom and I drove up to the DuPont State Recreational Forest to go hiking. We hiked the Triple Falls hike again, but this time managed to find Hooker falls (which we missed last time because the trail head was across the parking lot and not attached to the main trail like we thought it was.) We also hiked to another waterfall, Bridal Veil falls. So we saw a total of 4 waterfalls on our hike!

We had hoped the trees would be a little more colorful but it's still a little early to see the fall colors here. I found another hike I want to do soon when the fall colors have reached their peak.

We hiked a total of either 8.3 or 8.8 miles depending on which phone you looked at. (Not sure why there was a discrepancy since we were together the whole time.) Anyways, it was a long hike with a lot of very steep uphill hiking. I should probably start playing around with the AllTrails app since I think it tracks elevation gain and stuff? I'm not sure but I'll have to check into it more. I've used it to find trails but that's about it so far.

I have a lot more pictures to share but here are a few I took on my phone.

Hooker Falls.

Triple Falls.

High Falls.

Bridal Veil Falls.

4. In case you missed it, on Monday I shared our visit to the Norfolk Botanical garden to see the roses and Washed Ashore exhibit, and on Wednesday I shared my September Photo A Day pictures!

Hope you have a great weekend!

September 2021 Photo A Day

I got really behind in September since we were moving and there were a few prompts that really had me stumped. Fortunately I was able to get it done! It seems quite odd that there are only 3 months left to go until the end of the year!

(source)

August Photo A Day

July Photo A Day

June Photo A Day

May Photo A Day

April Photo A Day

March Photo A Day

February Photo A Day

January Photo A Day

How was your September?

Roses and Trash at the Norfolk Botanical Garden

I bet that title got your attention, right? Well, there is actually a trash exhibit (called Washed Ashore) at the Norfolk Botanical Garden! The exhibit features 15 different sea creatures made out of actual trash that was found in the ocean and washed up on beaches.

It was interesting and disturbing to see all the different garbage that was found in the ocean. It was sort of like looking at an I Spy book or something. The closer you looked the more items you would see. Water bottles, life preservers, lighters, toys, gas cans, etc. Basically anything you can imagine was used to create the different sea creatures.

But first, we checked out the rose garden. The roses started blooming earlier this summer and it's always fun to explore the rose garden and see all the different colors and varieties there are!