The Richness of Fall

I love fall and since having children this time of year has a richness that I had never fully appreciated before. This year though it felt like winter had muscled its way in and had overtaken fall with this weekend's snowstorm that dumped 6-12 inches of snow on us.  And now all of the Christmas decorations up in the stores and Christmas music being piped through the speakers doesn't help.

I had to remind myself that it is still fall.

Fall is...

...trips to the apple orchard to pick apples for crockpot apple butter.

 ...trips to the pumpkin patch for hayrides with straw tickling our noses and the search for the perfect pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern.

...trick-or-treating or trick-or-trunking.

...hiking through a local state park with the leaves crunching and crackling underfoot.

Before having kids, apples came from the grocery store not an orchard and forget about carving pumpkins which would just result in one big mess.  Leaves just meant work raking them up into piles just for a big gust of wind to blow them around the yard again.  Now we bring them inside for leaf rubbings or leave the kids jump in them.  

What is your favorite part of this time of year?  And it is okay to say a day off of work for the Thanksgiving holiday!