We've spent many October's hitting up various pumpkin patches in our area. This year I'm more fiscally conservative as we have several fun vacations planned. I'd much rather see the money goes towards that than a month of corn pools and jumping pads (not that those aren't fun, but spending $400+ every weekend is killer). This year we decided to do a hiking month to prep us for New Mexico at the end of the month. The weather here in Iowa has been rainy, so we only had one decent day to work with. That worked out well since I had an event to work Saturday. It was pretty perfect because the event was at Barnes and Noble. I love rainy Saturday's in book stores. My minis love it too because they got to pick out books, play with play dough, and sip on coffee from the cafe.
My "help"
Bonus of the event being at that particular Barnes and Noble location: it was right next to Chick Fil A. Elizabeth requested her own tray of nuggets for dinner (face palm, but she ate them!). Since we had nothing else planned for the day other than going to bed early (which was accomplished), we decided to carve a pumpkin. You know, just in case we run out of time later in the month.
We cleaned the seeds and have been noshing on roasted pumpkin seeds all week! Yum!
We have the "cleaner outers" and the "cutter" in our family.
Sunday morning jam session while eating pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Then we got ready for our first hike. It was finally nice and cool out. Of course, I was ready to go while the rest of my family were walking around like they've never gotten ready for a hike before. I had to sit on the couch so I didn't lose my shit with one of them. FINALLY (two hours later) we left for one of our favorite local hiking spots, Brown's Woods.
The last time we walked this trail we ended up covered in mosquito bites (even in our boots!) despite being covered in bug spray. This time we lucked out with very few bugs and only three bites (between two of us).
"Turn around and let me take your picture." All three had different interpretations of my instructions.
The rest of the day consisted of chili, watching football, getting the daycare room ready for the week, and reading their favorite Halloween children's books. They prefer to read them to themselves now....which makes me sad because I do an awesome Room On The Broom reading!
