Autumn Fun

When I think of autumn, my mind fills with images of frosty mornings, pumpkins, falling leaves, and gorgeous colors. As a child, I always hoped for a huge leaf pile to jump into, but the evergreens we had never magically dropped huge leaves, like we see in movies filmed on the east coast.

Our yard had a very large chestnut tree that does drop its leaves, not enough to create a pile large enough to jump into, but enough that the kids can throw them up in the air for a little leafy-rain... and a fun photo op for me!

All of the Paris runway models are wearing PJs and rain boots this season!

It's like her own leaf ticker tape parade.

I love the look of wonder on his face in this one.

Sheer joy!

Our Kennewick Weekend

Last Friday, Annika's school was closed for teacher training. That meant one of us would be home with her and the idea of "hey, why don't we make a weekend out of it an visit the extended family in Kennewick before the passes get snowy" took shape.

Before kids, the door-to-door drive would take us 3 hours in the summer and 3.5 hours in the winter (barring anything weird like pass closures, etc.). On Friday, it took us 4.5 or 5 hours to go door to door. Nothing like traveling with wiggly kids who have to pee every 10 minutes!

We wound up driving two cars over because of our plan to leave our spare car behind so our nieces can use it. Great in theory... in practice, that resulted in Eric having a very peaceful drive over with our dog and me having a stressful time driving our kids over in the van. We did caravan and used Annika's Hello Kitty walkie talkies to maintain an open line of communication between the cars, but that didn't help when the kids needed new movies in the DVD player or helping picking up the book/toy/shoe/water bottle that they happened to drop. I was pretty frazzled by the time we pulled up to our destination but was glad we made it in one piece and me without too many bald spots. ;)

Our plan was to stick around until Sunday, but that had a chance of getting hijacked when Eric's boss reached out to him saying there were Internet connectivity issues back at the office. Mind you, this was at 9 Friday night. Eric wound up working with a guy from the ISP until 1:30 AM on Saturday (can we have a collective "ugh, that poor guy!!" inserted here, please??) Fortunately, the issue was resolved and Eric didn't have to pack up our crew for a Saturday return trip to Seattle, which he thought might have to happen.

Conor woke up at 4:50 Saturday morning (can we have a collective, "ugh, that's early" inserted here, please??); to pass the time, he and I hung out in the bedroom's walk in closet (all of us shared a room that weekend) and read stories until Annika woke up a bit after 6:00. To let the others in the house sleep as long as possible (namely, Eric), I shuttled the kids off to the closest Starbucks for hot cocoa ("hot toto", per Conor) and the opportunity to speak above a whisper.

The rest of the weekend was really mellow. John (Eric's brother) made chocolate chip cookie dough before we arrived so he and the kids could do a project together. (Wasn't that sweet of him??) It was a huge hit; the kids loved it ... and the rest of us loved the resulting cookies.

It was a rainy, cold weekend, so we mostly hung out at the house and caught up with Eric's brother and his family, as well as Eric's sister and her husband, who live close to Eric's brother (et al).

A few months ago, Eric's brother's family added a 3rd Great Dane to their pack. They named him Zed; he's super cute, but already bigger than our Buca. He decided that Annika (who runs everywhere and makes random squeaky noises) was his toy, so took to chasing her and trying to play with her. Annika wasn't overly impressed with that idea. Zed also wanted to play (aka nibble  and slobber on) Buca, who like Annika, wasn't overly enthusiastic with the idea, so poor Zed spent a lot of the weekend segregated from the kids or on a leash. Our kids had a great time with the older Danes (Nevaeh and Boomer) who were much slower and less inclined to think our kids were chase-worthy.

On Sunday morning, we packed up and made the long drive home. (Fortunately, without the many potty stops that we had on Friday!) Because of our fairly early start, we had the freeway to ourselves for much of drive to Ellensburg. We saw quite a few gorgeous fog banks (partially making me wish we had the ability to stop on the side of the freeway so I could practice photographing landscapes), not to mention beautiful waterfalls in the mountains and some stunning autumn-colored trees all along the way.

Nevy

Zed

View of the canyon Friday night

Boomer and Erin chillin' on the floor

Makin' cookies with Uncle John

Coooooookies!

Our 2012 Pumpkin Patch Excursion

Each year, our family visits a small pumpkin patch/petting farm that is about 20 minutes away from our house. Eric and I even went there once before we had kids... back when we were young and not sleep depraved. :)

One of the draws for this location (aside from the fact it isn't overly far from our house) is it has farm animals in addition to pumpkins. They have a miniature horse, chickens galore, pigs, sheep, goats, a calf, peacocks (not exactly a farm animal...), ducks, and turtles (again, not so much in the farm category, but they are there).

Last night, I realized our run of amazing weather will probably come to an end before too much longer, which made today an ideal day to visit the pumpkin patch. Eric, in all his wisdom, pointed out how nasty parking was last year and how we should arrive as close to when the farm opened as possible (which for us, was about a half hour .. which is pretty good for our crew!). The weather was so gorgeous this morning that we didn't even need coats. No coats in Seattle in October??? What has the world come to?

We got an amazing parking spot and scurried right in. As we paid the entrance fee, the gal told us that some piglets were born the day before and we should make sure to peek in on them. I am so glad we did! The piglets (11 total) were adorable! As we ooh'd and ahh'd over the piglets, the mama pig slept like only a new mother can. She was exhausted and snoring loudly in case anyone missed the fact she had given birth 11 times over yesterday. (Either that or she has sleep apnea and needs a CPAP machine.)

We also got a chance to visit the farm's sheep. There were two kids that were absolutely precious. They hopped around like they were made of springs. Poor Annika and Conor just couldn't move slowly enough to keep the sheep from scrambling as they got near.

After feeding the chickens and turkeys, playing in the barn, and me trying to smuggle the precious calf of the barn and into our car (ok, that last part didn't really happen, but I sure considered it for a few moments), we headed off to the pumpkin patch to pick out which orange beauties we'd take home.

In previous years, we've waited until closer to Halloween to go to the pumpkin patch and found the fields to be rather picked over. This year, we went the 2nd weekend they were open (they're only open to the public during the weekends of October), we got to pick from a wonderful selection of pumpkins.



Eric and Annika walking toward the entrance




I'm not kidding (get it??) .. one of the cutest animals ever!




Cute little piggies!!
(Compare them to the size of the mama's hoof!!)



Conor trying to haul his pumpkin with him



Annika showing her pumpkin of choice




The kids decided they were too tired of walking,
so they hitched a ride with the pumpkins



Waiting for Daddy to pay for the pumpkins

All ready to head home