This week's FIADS Topic

Now that it is getting cooler here, it makes me think of apple picking and hay rides. Are you the type that likes to go to participate in all the fall festivities like apple picking, pumpkins, decorating for the fall, hay rides, baking fall goodies, etc. or do you just sit and count the days till Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah?

(I hope the hostesses aren't expecting an whole essay for this answer!)
What I am doing this year is rather different from what we have done in the recent past, and the last several years have been quite different from what we used to do ten plus years ago. Le sigh, one of the downsides of having your children grow up and go away to school. Well, the first change came with moving from a neighborhood with lots of houses and kids to a street with seven houses, and three of those have no little kids.
Anyway, on with a real answer. We used to decorate with pumpkins, carving at least one per kid, and often an extra for Hubband and me. Hey, if you are helping the kids and lots of folks are going to be coming by to look, you might as well have a bunch! In other words, we don't carve pumpkins anymore. I still buy them 'cause I am all sure you know by now that I cook and eat the yummy things. I have been know to decorate with corn stalks, but not more than one or twice I think. I haven't been on a hay ride since DTY was in preschool. Hmm, I wonder if I could convince her to go back there so we could go on one? I think probably not.
I have been to apple orchards to get apples, especially here in Minnesota, but haven't gone out into the trees to pick my own. I might do that this year if it would ever stop raining for more than half a day! I wish I could let some of you having a drought have our rain.
Cooking fall goodies? I am all over that one! Always have been. It is a little harder now, without the kids home to help eat them or take treats to set construction and cast parties; also not having Hubband being able to haul stuff to the office at the drop of a hat. I still find a reason, any reason, to cook or bake up some goodies.
Count the days? Not very likely. Well, I did keep track of the days I had left to get the costumes made, especially if any given year had more than one complex one to do, but not counting down as it were.
I should work on finding some pictures of kids and costumes and scanning them so I can let you know what they look like. Well, only if you guys had any interest in seeing what a Pile of Leaves looks like, or a Pixie on a Toadstool, or a Loaf of Bread. Yeah, yeah, I have been known to spoil my kids when it comes to Halloween costumes. I am sure if I listen hard enough, I can hear my mom and brother saying, "No S**t!" all the way from SLC.
(Maybe I gave them an essay after all!)