A Fine Fall Day

Today was bittersweet.  We had our very first friend visit us in our new digs. She is in town for work, so arrived a night early to stay us. Sweet. Also today, Troy left for a week long golf trip to Mexico. Bitter. 

Wanting to take full advantage of having another person to help corral the children, I mentally prepared a long outing for the day. There was a cute Fall Festival Day advertised in the local newspaper. Perfect. I thought that since the weather was going to be of no use getting us in the fall spirit, perhaps a little pumpkin patch and hay ride would do the trick.  So, I did as any good mother does and dressed the wee ones for a Fall Day. The Taz donned a lovely orange and yellow plaid tank top with a lovely brown open toed sandle. And Maggie wore a peach onsie. They practically screamed Fall.

It was a perfectly beautiful morning and a perfectly nice festival. It had all of the things four ladies needed. A bouncy house, a fancy hair clip tent, a cheezy animal balloon maker/magician, and reasonably priced bottles of water for such an event.  The only thing it lacked was the pumpkin patch. The very thing that was used to lure The Taz into putting on any clothes at all, little lone the facny pony tails I did up for the occasion, was the very thing missing. Pumpkins. We left the festivities with promises of a popcorn lunch and a pumpkin patch after her nap. And it may have just worked.

Except, for some reason, today the stars did not align. My only guess is that The Taz was invigorated by the fresh fall air. She held out long enough, kicked, screamed, laughed, cried and sang loud enough, long enough that she missed her nap entirely. And in the process woke Bear Cub up one hour early.

I put together a plan to try and salvage the afternoon with costume shopping and another pumpkin patch event at the YMCA. I felt it my duty to get the ladies some pumpkins after all the promising in the morning. At this point, I may well have been the only one interested in the stinkin' things anyway. But, focused am I. So we load up once again.

We pull into the local boutique (the one with the red bullseye) and get into a shopping cart. And right there, ten feet inside the store is a 6ft by 8ft table with a nice display of fat pumpkins. The Taz screeches. Bear Cub just wiggles because the screeching is her cue for dance moves.  My friend and I look at each other and agree that it is far superior to any other pumpkin patch we would encouter that afternoon, and go about the business of sizing each one up.  Other than the lack a cup of hot cider or seasonal spiced latte from the attached Starbucks (due to the sweating) it was a fine fall day.