One of my most favorite traditions Jackie and I started early during our marriage is what we call our "Fall Family Day of Fun," where we pick a day and do some fun stuff associated with the Fall season. Some years this has included a corn maze and trip to a petting farm, other years it has included just finding the time to go get some pumpkins and spend the night carving them. It has been enjoyable to start sharing this tradition with Maia. Yet, this year, we actually got some extra fall fun before we did our day of fun.
This past Saturday, we traveled north to the great state of Michigan to visit my parents before they leave for the winter months, and also spend some time with other family, including my sister and her kids, nephew Gavin and niece Bree. This day ended up being like an extended family day of fall fun, as Gavin, Bree, Maia and I had a ton of fun playing in a leaf pile that grandpa "built" in the backyard. The fun times included burying Uncle Don alive under the leaves (something, I was told, that Maia did not like, as evidence by her taking the leaves off of me - one leaf at a time), good old-fashioned running through the leaves, running and jumping into the leaves, and throwing the leaves in the air ( as Bree said, "it's raining leaves!").
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| Dumping leaves on Gavin. |
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| Throwing the leaves! |
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| Mommy and Maia smiling! |
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| This fall stuff is fun! |
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| The cousins, sort of sitting with each other. |
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| Running through the leaves! |
The next day, we went to a local apple orchard and enjoyed the simple fun of Maia's first hay ride, a walk among the orchard to pick some apples, and getting pumpkins to carve later.
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| Self-explanatory. |
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| "No, I want to go this way Mommy." |
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| "Fine, I do this myself." |
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| Heavier than it looks. |
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| "I want this big one!" |
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| "Just keep rolling, just keep rolling." |
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| Happy! |
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| "I can get used to this hay ride thing." |
These experiences are extravagant, but I think they create memorable experiences for us - to Maia's apprehensiveness (and almost fear) of the initial bumpy hay ride, to her calling all the pumpkins "messy," to her insistence of pulling the apple wagon by herself, and to chattering about the hay ride later in the day.
Those small, seemingly mundane moments, that I want to hold onto for as long as I can.
"It is in the little moments that we live the longest. Everything else is existence." - Pysche Roxas-Mendoza
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