Well here it is. Five years ago this weekend, I got down on my knee at the top of Bald Mountain in Inlet, New York and I proposed to Earl. Five years ago this weekend, I basically said to Earl “I’m in it for life.” And life has been wonderful ever since.

We took Friday off to do a little leaf peeping. We ended up driving down through the Finger Lakes. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and the leaves were at their peek. I could not believe the brillances of the golds, reds, oranges and all the other fall colors.

First stop was Fox Run Vineyards near Penn Yan. A little wine sampling, a tour of the vineyard, a couple of bottles of wine for home, and we’re on our way. They had a lovely cafe that we enjoyed lunch at.

Next stop was in Watkins Glen. We went to Watkins Glen State Park, which is known for it’s huge gorge. We hiked for about an hour before we headed back to the car due to rain. We took a bunch of pictures, which I’ll be posting this week.

Then on to Corning. We had been to Glass Museum before, so we decided to just take a leisurely stroll down Historic Market Street. The weather was quite mild for mid October, in the mid 70s, so it was a nice walk.

We then decided to drive up to Rochester. Ended up going to Chili’s not too far outside of the city, in Victor.

On Saturday we went and saw “Bandits” with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton. What a sucky movie. I was so bored, I went to the bathroom twice just to relieve the monotony. We almost walked out of the movie, something we’ve never done before, not even during “Eyes Wide Shut.” I LOVE Bruce Willis, but this movie majorly sucked. We then had a snappy dinner at Wegmans in DeWitt. For you out of towners, Wegmans is a lovely grocery store here in Upstate New York (I think it’s in Pennsylvania too). Anyways, the large, large stores have a food court in them, much like Marché in Canada. You take your tray around and choose from a wide variety of types of food, and enjoy it for dinner. I know, I know, how domestic for two gay men to be eating at a food court in a grocery store. Those that are more in-tune with the lifestyle gay men allegedly live might say that our choice was rather mundane. But I guess Earl and I aren’t your typical fancy pants couple. And the food was dang good. 🙂

Today we went to the first of many Christmas parties. You read right, we went to a Christmas party on October 14. My grandfather and his wife (they’ve been married since 1996, my grandmother had passed away shortly before) leave for Florida first week of November, so the whole family gets together for a sort of Thanksgiving and Christmas meal combined. It’s rather nice, and it was nice seeing the family.

I did get to read a letter from my younger cousin. She and her husband, and their two toddler children, are missionaries and currently live in Yemen, spreading the word of the gospel and doing His work. I must admit that I admire them for their courage, as they do what they feel they were put on this Earth for. They are undertaking quite a feat, especially in these turbulent times. They are following their life mission, and we pray for their safety, as well as the safety of the innocent bystanders of these vicious acts. I had thought that they would be over in Yemen for a couple of years, do what they needed to do, and then return to the states. But from what I understand now, they plan on spending the rest of their lives there. We wish them all peace.