october and picking apples and hiking, empty nest style

How can your average person tell that it's October?

That's right, PUMPKIN SHAPED PEANUT BUTTER CUPS, GUYS!

Those little cuties are by far the best shaped peanut butter cups. Let's all just face it, they definitely have the best peanut butter to chocolate ratio. Mmmm

Also pumpkins! And mums! And an abundance of city people slumming it upstate to go apple picking for cute fall-ish Instagram posts to ooh and aah over.

That was rather cynical sounding of me wasn't it?  Sorry. No offense.

But really.

I live near so many great farms and orchards.  Right now I have overflowing bags of fresh apples in my kitchen. I can't get enough of them. I've actually got some crockpot applesauce cooking right now. Not sure if anything could smell any better than that.

Last weekend Alex and I went off apple picking like weird little empty nesters. Like, it was so strange not having any kids with us. Both of the girls were off doing their own things with their friends, and of course Alex is away at college, so we went for it. Just the two of us. We took a nice ride in the country to this awesome orchard that has corn mazes and tractor rides and hay slides and stuff. We definitely felt like the minority because most people there had little kids with them.

We also felt kind of free and nice, doing our own thing. My favorite thing about the orchard that we went to is the fresh, hot cider donuts. All cinnamon-y and warm... SO GOOD, not even kidding. Besides a huge bag of apples, we picked raspberries and strawberries and got some fresh pressed apple cider and mini pumpkins. Not much better than that! It was pretty fun.

After hitting the farm, we went to a really cool spot for a picnic lunch and a good hard hike. It was such a gorgeous day. The place has all of these awesome rock faces and cool trails, but on a really nice day, it can get a little crowded. As nice as it was with just us, I definitely missed having the kids there. I like my kids, they really are pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. 

Maybe we'll take them there next weekend. I'll definitely need another bag of those donuts..

Pocket Full of Sunshine

Today is one of those perfect, almost-fall days, that roll around every so often.

You wake up to cool and foggy mornings, but by the time you've finished that cozy cup of coffee, the sun starts warming up the grass, and the morning dew just disappears.

You need to wear a light jacket in the morning, but always seem to shed it by the time lunch rolls around.

The air smells like c h a n g i n g leaves.

Oh I do love September.

Shameful

So the other day was the first time I have posted all summer, basically. That is just shameful, and I have no great excuse. Summer went along as it typically does in our house. I always have these great big plans of doing lots of fun, inexpensive, memory-making stuff with the kids, and then... nothing. We do the same old stuff - nights and weekends filled with our kids softball and baseball games, then tournaments, then soccer. Before you know it - GAPKIDS is putting up their back-to-school clothes online, and I am getting ridiculous amounts of fall catalogs in the mail.

Crap. Another summer, over.

This summer was particularly painful, because we had more rain than sun. I often felt like I was stuck in some bad Groundhog Day in Seattle movie or something. Rain really put a "damper" (hehe - admit it, that is funny) on my plans. The kids actually go back to school in less than a week! I'm not even done getting everyone organized for school, and that's almost like a crime in my book. I can't stand to be disorganized.

These are some of the things that I wanted to do this summer:

--Go to Sleepy Hollow Lake (not once)

--Go to Lake Taconic (no)

--Go strawberry picking (nope)

--Go camping (negative)

--Take fun bike rides with the kids (barely)

--Make my backyard look GREAT (boo, soggy marshy mushroomy yard)

--Go to Cooperstown (did it!)

--Go to the Bronx Zoo (nah)

--Take the kids to Six Flags, Zoom Flume or Hershey Park (no)

--Go Hiking (not once)

--Howe Caverns (Jenney and HER family went...)

--Weekend in the city (Statue of Liberty, Museums, etc) - this did not happen.

Oh well, I guess I will put those things on my Summer To Do List for next summer!