The End of October

edited to add: I've been working on this post since early November, but due to some internet bugs I'm only just now finishing it. Que Sera, Sera.

We spent the last half of October up North in the woods of Pennsylvania. Joe spent a week of that time helping his best friend get the house he and his wife just bought in to move-in condition. Little dude and I spent most of our time with my sister, her husband and their daughter.

 



The second week of our trip was spent visiting family, a pair of friends who were due with their first baby (he came the next day!) and celebrating Halloween. We had planned to try to visit more friends, but between a sick dog, a sick toddler, and knowing we'd be spending far too much time in the car - we had to scale our plans back some.



We did, however, make it to the pumpkin patch for our annual picking excursion. We went on a Monday afternoon, the place was empty and there were a ton of pre-picked pumpkins inside the farm stand, but I wanted to venture in to the patch.



Joe asked the man at the stand if we could go in to the patch and he said that we could, and to take a wagon with us. As we ventured back, crows wheeled overhead talking amongst themselves. We stopped to pet the farm animals and a woman who had been feeding them asked us if we were on a stroll, we told her we were on our way to get pumpkins to which she replied the goose is loose, she may yell at you, please don't harass her.



Easy enough, I'm not a big fan of geese!

After we'd picked our pumpkins and were waiting to cash out, Joe overheard the man in the farm stand tell someone on the phone that the patch is closed on weekdays, but the store is open. What a kindness to have let the 3 of us roam around while the place wasn't even open! We were sure to thank him profusely and threw some extra cider donuts on to our purchase.

We spent the following night carving jack-o-lanterns with my sister's family. We listened to Halloween music and my 4 year old niece was very excited that the experience was "soooo spooky!"



Halloween itself was one of the best ones I've celebrated since my own trick-or-treating days! All of the siblings (minus my brother and his fiance who weren't up visiting) met at my mom's house with their kids and got ready to go out together. We took individual family photos and then one of the whole motley crew, before the kids grabbed their buckets and the adults grabbed their... err.. adult beverages and we began the trek around the neighborhood.



There was a lot of laughter and it was great to see how excited the girls were to run up to the door! Orion and Joe's crow and scarecrow costumes were a great hit, my corn costume was a bit of a head scratcher I guess! The night ended when a man in a giant chicken costume scared my niece and there was no recovery; she was afraid every house would have a person in a costume holding the candy bowl.

So we reconvened at my mom's for fire, food and more good times before my guys and I headed to bed to begin the long drive home in the morning.