Another fond memory I have of fall is apple picking. I'd only been a few times, but I remember loving it. I decided I really wanted to take the boys apple picking. Unfortunately we missed the peak of the season, and I was told that there wasn't much out there. So, we decided to go pumpkin picking. I really had no idea where to go, so I spent what felt like forever online trying to find a close sort of nearby. I found one in Shakopee, so that's the one we picked. It was pretty nice, they had a bunch of Pumpkin's out front (in retrospect we should have just taken one of those. So of course, we took pictures with the pumpkins!
Then we grabbed a wheelbarrow and headed out into the Field to pick our pumpkins. They had a tractor ride, but it just drove in a circle around the fields, not too exciting.


They Pre-cut all of their pumpkins off the vine, so in the main area the only ones left were already rotting. Which was pretty gross. So I ushered Hunter towards the back, and we were able to find some pumpkins that seemed some what ripe.

Then on the way back Hunter and Phillip did a corn maze. Hunter liked it, but they were only in there for a few mins, so I can only imagine it wasn't too big, which I guess is good for little kids.

All in all, it was a good place for our first time. I would like to try a different place next weekend, maybe one of the farms a little further out. Next year I want to start early, and find a few favorite farms to buy fresh produce from. Hunter had a good time though, and that is really all that matters.

Leaf Pile

One of my favorite memories growing up was raking leaves in the fall. My favorite part, of course, was making a massive pile, and jumping in, but I also liked the mind numbing act of raking as well. There is something about making disorderly messy things look nice that has always appealed to me. My family would beg to differ judging by my room growing up, but it is true. Jobs like scraping paint, raking leaves, washing grout etc have always made me a little excited. In any case, this was the first year that Hunter would be able to make a "jumpable" pile. He was excited, but did not really know what he was in for, so he was pretty apathetic at first.

This is him sweeping the driveway.


Raking leaves is a lot easier when you can make many little piles, and then walk around picking them up.
Making one huge pile is a pain in the butt!

This is our pile;

At first when I told Hunter to jump in, he would just kind of walk in and then do a small hop. It wasn't until I jumped in that he finally caught on to the whole event, and really went crazy. He would jump in and bury himself. We buried each other and then the other person had to "be scared" when we would jump out. We also played hide and seek with "sheildy". (His shield he got at Renfest).

It was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the familiar smells, feel in the air, etc that I have not experienced in a long time.