Columbus Day Long Weekend / Fall Kick-Off

We used the long weekend to kick off Fall. Summer morphs into Fall, right before our eyes. Amazing, how that happens. There’s no stopping it.

 

What started out as a cool crisp Fall-is-in-the-air weekend, quickly morphed into a looks-like-Fall-but-feels-like summer weekend. Just like somehow scenes like this:

…quickly morph into this:

Friday night was our First Friday. Owen chose to go to Cracker Barrel, after all the great reports on it from his brother. He ate an entire adult-sized meal platter of ham, glazed carrots, macaroni and cheese,and biscuits with butter. There wasn’t a spec left on his plate. This is not the kind of food their mama makes, but my boys (Braydon too) love this stuff. After we ate, Owen and I played checkers.

Our First Friday checkers match started off fun-and-serious, but quickly morphed into swing-the-head-back-laughter-and-glee when Owen realized full well that he was about to beat his mama fair and square:

One of the reasons that Checker Barrel is such a hit is the store there. With Kyle, and then again with Owen, I let them pick out something for themselves and gifts to bring home to their siblings. They love gifting their siblings. Owen picked out three “piano horns” – at $4.99 a piece, these were a steal – and once these “piano horns” were opened up (bright and early on Saturday morning in Mama and Papi’s bed), they then proceeded to be played alllll weeeeeekend loooooooong.

It was o.k., though, because the beauty of the rest of the weekend more than made up for the obnoxiousness of those “piano horns.”

Let’s be clear though: in every bin of fresh-from-the-tree apples, amidst all the beauties, are some not-so-beautiful ones. Can I hear an ‘Amen’? And in every glorious long weekend of warm autumn breezes, picnics, and pumpkins, are some not-so-glorious moments. Can it just go without saying, please, that of course, amidst the loveliness of it all our weekend was also splattered with our share of yuck? While our photos purposefully attempt to capture the lovely, the unphotographed yuck included, amongst other things, 1 puke into the woods on the edge of a parking lot; 1 emergency toddler pee stop on the side of the road; more “CUT IT OUT!”’s than I could possibly count; a few feisty spats; 2 time outs; 1 white skirt completely ruined by mud stains; a couple of hard-core meltdowns; and a To Do List that didn’t even come close to having half of the items checked off it. So, yes, let’s just acknowledge it: it is imperfect. And yes, it should go without saying that: we sift through our moments, we more-often-than-not choose to focus on the good, and we let the bad filter on out as much as possible.

There was a trip to our favorite Farm Shop to pick up a picnic lunch on our way to Peace Valley—

…where we proceeded to have a heavenly time soaking it all in.

And then it was off to a fabulous party at friends of ours’ farm, where our kids proceeded to have an absolutely fabulous time.

The next morning there were waffles, made by Meera (with just a little help from Mama):

…which morphed into after-breakfast-conversation that lingered and lingered while Kyle relished in telling us about how he wants to be an astronaut, explore outer space, and “study the planets”:

And then it was off to the Sunday morning Farmer’s Market, followed by a nice long bike ride:

And another picnic (2 picnics in 2 days = 1 awesome weekend). And this particular picnic, on the side of the bike trail…

…quickly morphed into steep-slope-climbing and maniacal-mud-sliding:

Which was followed by our last trip to Ritas of the season… which quickly morphed into the kind of crazy sister love that only a sugar rush can provoke:

Back at home there was sprinkler playing:

…which quickly morphed into “soup making”:

And tree swinging… that quickly morphed into tree climbing:

And somehow, peppered in there, there was also time for rainbow painting:

And chess playing:

Bedtime-routine-with-kittens (yes, they are slogging their way through Harry Potter), and early-to-bed-sweet-dreaming (for a girl who hits the hay at 6:30 if there has been no nap that day):

 

All in all, it was a lovely few days (with a smattering of yuck). Perfect is so over-rated.