This fall we enjoyed many of our traditional activities as well as a couple new ones. We always enjoy a trip to Sky Top orchard for apple picking, though I usually like to save the trip for a weekday closer to my birthday, when the leaves are more colorful, the temperatures are cooler, and the crowds are thinner. This year, however, we opted for a Saturday in early October so that we could go with friends. I will never, ever go to that place on a Saturday again. The temperatures were quite cool that day and it was an otherwise beautiful day, but the crowds were incredible! The first bad sign was when we got in a traffic jam about a half mile from the orchard, as people were having to wait for parking spots to become available. We actually opted to park across the street from the orchard, where some landowner was charging $5 to park. Never had to do that before! Our first stop was a cluster of picnic tables, crowded with other families, where we planned to eat a quick sandwich before looking for apples. I stayed at the table with Nathanael and Claire, while Paul went off to scout out where to buy apply cider donuts. I literally had my back turned to Nathanael for ten seconds, long enough to help Claire with a bite of her lunch, when he disappeared. I discovered he was gone just a few minutes before Paul came back over, but wasn't terribly concerned about it because I knew he was anxious to get over to the playground (right beside the picnic tables) and I assumed that's where he had headed. Paul came back and asked where Nathanael was. When I told him I had no idea, he wasn't very pleased. I stayed at the tables, in case he should wander back, and Paul went to look for him. After several minutes, he casually came back over and said he hadn't found him. We switched roles, and this time I took Sam with me to go look for him on the playground. I tried to have Sam go up inside each little playhouse while I scanned the perimeter, but Sam wasn't being very cooperative. Panic began to rise up inside of me the longer I went without finding him. There were so many people there! What were we going to do if we couldn't find him?! Thank goodness we wouldn't have to figure that out. After Paul took his second trip over to the playground, he found Nathanael hiding in the very first playhouse, the one I tried to get Sam to go inside to check. After that momentarily frightening start, our trip to the orchard was quite pleasant. Once we wandered back into the apple trees, we lost most of the crowd and were able to enjoy our day. Claire's favorite part was feeding the goats. The boys enjoyed finding apples and picking enough to fill their baskets.
Olympia works for March of Dimes, so this year the little girls participated in the WonderWalk at the zoo. They enjoyed a cool morning of cousin time and eating donuts. Some did not enjoy posing with props. The crowd here was pretty heavy also, and once again Claire's favorite activity was feeding the goats. She's such a little animal lover.
One afternoon, I got to go to Nathanael's class to be a Mystery Reader. Nathanael knew that one day I would come to his class to read, but he didn't know which time it would be my turn and he didn't know what book I would read. I picked Otis and the Scarecrow because it seemed seasonally appropriate. It was an ok book. I took them goody bags filled with pumpkin stickers, Halloween pencils, and pumpkin spice puppy chow. I really enjoyed dressing up and being able to participate in Nathanael's class.
Mid-October the weather was beautiful. We took advantage of one lovely afternoon and went to the downtown airport park for some play time and to see some really cool WWII planes. We got to watch as a couple of them took off and landed. Later that night, Paul set up our tent in the backyard and the kids enjoyed watching a movie outside and later Sam even went to bed out there. We brought him inside after he was asleep.
For the first time in a number of years, we participated in our ward trunk-or-treat. The Ludwigs were our guests. Though as crowded as expected, the kids at least had a good time and brought home some good candy for us to eat.
Finally, Halloween day arrived. After school we did our traditional grocery store trick-or-treating, first at Food Lion and then Publix. They always have the best goodies for the kids and Publix even does games. The best scores this year were hardcover children's books the kids got to pick and chocolate covered apples (we actually didn't even end up eating these because of all the other candy we had amassed, but it was still pretty exciting to get them).
After dinner, and a costume change for both boys who were tired of being Mario and Luigi (instead Nathanael wore part of a ninja costume and Sam just wore his football uniform minus his pads and helmet....they hardly looked dressed up at all), we hit about 6 streets in the neighborhood, until the boys were tired of walking and were pleased enough with their haul. Claire was probably the most excited one of the bunch to be out trick-or-treating! She caught on quick. She ran up to each door, trailing her brothers, and excitedly proclaimed "I got some!" while holding up her bag as she came back down each driveway. When we got back to the house, I did something very unlike myself: I allowed them to gorge on their candy until they felt sick.
The next morning we awoke to a light dusting of snow on the ground and more coming down. It was pretty and exciting for the short while that it lasted. It was as if it was bringing in the holiday season, my REAL favorite time of the year!
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