Fall List

My absolute most favorite thing about fall is that it signals the beginning of the holidays, and we are so excited to celebrate all of Ezzy's first holidays this year. Last year was a ton of fun, and the entire month of October was dedicated to Halloween-themed activities. We went to Disneyland twice, got lost in a corn maze and visited a pumpkin patch, braved the terrifying mazes at Ghost Harbor on the Queen Mary, and watched tons of scary movies. Here's a recap, if you want to revisit the pics. This year we'll hold off on anything super scary, but here are a few things I'm looking forward to doing as a family this month:

• Julian, San Diego is an old mining town with apple orchards, so we're going to head down there to explore and pick apples for a day. I've only been apple picking once, back in Maine, so I'm excited to see what the orchards are like out here. I see lots of homemade apple cobbler in the future!
• Can't wait to visit some pumpkin patches, mainly just for the picture opportunities. You can see from the pic above that we just can't help ourselves when there's a giant pumpkin around, so expect to see many more pics of Ezzy in front of, on top of, and surrounded by pumpkins. I don't think we'll actually carve pumpkins this year, but we'll see. 
• If we find a good corn maze, I'd love to go. If anyone knows of any in the southern California area, please let me know. I'm still searching for one as good as the Dell Osso Farms maze in Lathrop. They really know how to do it right. The last one we went to down here didn't really have paths, so we couldn't tell if we were actually following the maze or just traipsing through a muddy corn field. 
• We're toying with the idea of a weekend trip to San Francisco. I think fall is the perfect time for a visit, and also it's close enough for Gangy, Grandpa Larry, and the uncles to meet us for lunch or dinner. If not this month, I foresee that coming up in the near future.
• I'd really like some family pictures taken of the three of us. It's so rare to have all three of us in one shot, and usually it's done with the face-time camera, which isn't great quality. We'd like to do some outdoor ones at the arboretum, as a follow up to the maternity photographs we had taken there.

I'm not usually one for decorating for halloween, but all summer I've been buying fresh flowers from Trader Joe's so I thought I'd switch over to a fall theme after I saw this cute DIY pumpkin centerpiece. Then I went to Michael's and all the Halloween stuff was 50% off, so I may have went a little overboard:

I'll give you one guess where I got this mini pumpkin bouquet.