Fall Is In The Air

It's really, truly, fall around here! All of the trees have changed colors and everywhere I look is BEAUTIFUL! That is one of the things I love about living in a valley in the middle of the country--seeing the trees and mountains all around. :o)

For a while now, I have been bugging LL to go with me to take Collette to a pumpkin patch-- it just seems like such a fun fall thing to do! We were going to go this past weekend, but I got sick, so I though we could go yesterday, on his day off. So I called a couple of local places and..... it turns out you can only go to an actual pumpkin patch and pick out a pumpkin on Saturdays. On Saturdays, there are hayrides, pony rides, petting zoos, pumpkin picking, all kinds of fall fun, but on Thursday, nada. I called to see if we could go to a pumpkin patch without an official group, but the answer was no, at every place. And LL is on call this weekend, so I know better than planning on having him participate in anything. So we decided we would go to a farmer's market and see if we could do a pumpkin photo op, and then try to go to an actual pumpkin patch later. So that's what we did. It was super windy, which made it seem even colder than it was (and the high for the day was 51) so it was a SUPER-quick photo shoot, but I think we got some cute ones:









Later that afternoon, we headed to the Animal Hospital to help them finish their float for the Halloween parade. Every year the Animal Hospital enters a pet-themed float in the parade. This year it was "There was an old lady that lived in a shoe, she had some many pets...." all of the doctors and staff dressed up as dogs, and one of the vets was the old lady in the shoe. The float advocated spaying and neutering. Most of the staff brought their own dogs to walk in the parade as well. Collette and I got roped into being the parade, too. I dressed her in a Dalmatian outfit (over LOTS of other layers) and I got roped into being a dog. I don't really have many pictures because it was dark by the time we got ready for the parade, and I didn't have my camera, but here are Collette and I before the parade. I'm partially in my dog costume.


As you can tell by Baby C's hat and mittens, it was COLD!!!! We had fun in the parade, but we were ready to come home and get warm by the end of it, too! It was after 9:00pm when it ended. Collette slept GREAT after all of that excitement and staying up late, though!

It's so hard to believe that Halloween and Collette's birthday are just around the corner!