I think autumn has to be my favorite season. I love the colors, the cooler weather, sweaters, soup, apple pie... AND all the activities that come with fall - pumpkin picking, apple picking, playing the leaves, hay rides, Busch Gardens in the fall. I love it all! We've loved doing these things with both our girls this year, although some of the events they haven't been as thrilled about as we were. ;)
Several weekends ago we headed out to College Run Farms with our friends the Malones. Evie loves their older daughter, Amelia, and their baby, Daphne, is just a few weeks younger than Gracie. This fall activity was a hit, I think partially because it included a ferry ride (and thus feeding the seagulls, Evie wants every bird to be a seagull now) and homemade pumpkin ice cream at the farm. Here are Amelia and Evie making friends with all the seagulls.
Daphne and Grace ready to pick out their first pumpkins!
Evie and Amelia were so pleased with their finds! :)
Our little family of pumpkins :)
While we were in Ohio we helped my parents rake up their leaves and couldn't wait to give Evie the thrilling experience of jumping in fresh fall leaves. She didn't get it. At all. Oh well - lol. Here are a few shots of us trying to get her excited about the opportunity. ;)
Back in Williamsburg my friend Sarah and I decided to check out Pumpkinville with our kids. Asher and Evie loved running around among the pumpkins and through the corn maze and tunnel!
The hay ride started off pretty well...
But the second the tractor started up, Evie was clutching me and as close to me as she could get with Gracie in the baby bjorn. :)
She told me at the end that she liked it and that it was fun, so, I'm not sure what was going on. :)
This past Sunday we crossed another fall essential and headed out to Charlottesville to go apple picking. Our friends, Aaron and Laura, were planning to come to Williamsburg this weekend, but Laura is due with their first baby any time and after a false alarm last week, they decided they better stick close to home. We had a great time visiting them instead though and they took us to a new, less crowded orchard. I can't wait to make apple sauce, pies, and crisp with all we collected. :) Evie was happy as can be just carrying around her two, specially picked apples and a cool rock that she found. :)
Aaron is in residency at UVA so instead of having the normal kid toys, they gave Evie things like a stethoscope to play with - lol! She was thrilled and spent much of the afternoon like this:
Lastly, while we're not at all Howl-o-Scream fans, we do love going to Busch Gardens in the mornings in the fall before the scary part of the park begins. Evie discovered Elmo's Spire (baby version of a drop tower) lately and LOVES the ride. Here we are getting ready to go up!
Gracie is finding BG more and more exciting too, as you can tell from her face!
We had a great time on Saturday and both girls were exhausted when we left. This was Evie two seconds after leaving the park. :)
Yay for fall!! Hope you are enjoying your favorite fall traditions too!
Before heading to our friends the Slades for a day of games, we drove down to our favorite beach on the James River... or at least what used to be our favorite James River beach! The water was so high and I have never seen the river with waves like these. These pictures aren't the best since the park was closed and we were taking these from the entrance. Plus it was quite rainy and windy. For those of you who haven't been here, the beach usually extends out between that fence ad the rocks on the right side of the picture.
