Taking It In

Fall is all around us.  Take one step outside and you smell bonfires burning, fresh cut grass mixed with fallen leaves, and apples from the trees across the street.  Everywhere you look gold is in the air filtering through the trees.  All my favorite colors are covering every surface in reds, oranges, greens, yellows, and soft browns.  It is a beautiful time of year.  A time I love.  And a very good reason for my absence from bloggyland, and my computer in general.

It is not the only reason for my absence.  The transition from lazy, summer days to busy, fall schedules has been much more difficult to adjust to then I had anticipated.  Even Tommy, who was thrilled to finally be going to school all day, has had a hard time getting used to the long days and has called home from school "sick" a number of times simply because he is tired.  The combination of school, homework, sports (which are thankfully ending soon), meetings, clubs, and everything else has been a lot for everyone to take in.  But we are getting there, and I comfort myself knowing things will calm down soon.

This past week and weekend the weather was absolutely perfect.  We took as many opportunities to decompress as we possibly could.  We spent every waking minute outside (except when we were watching our amazing Wisconsin teams- Go Brewers! Go Packers! Go Badgers!  Woot woot!).  We took walks.  We chopped wood.  We went to the pumpkin farm.  We played football and baseball and soccer.  We drank cider and ate apples fresh off the trees.  We visited the farmer's market and our favorite parks.  We did whatever we felt like doing.  It was just the way I like to spend my fall days.  We drank it all in.  At the end of each day we were all completely exhausted, but in a good way. 

The boys have a four day weekend coming up, and you can bet that we are going to take full advantage of that as well.  I don't want a minute of this gorgeous fall to go by unnoticed.  There will be fishing and hiking and four wheeler rides.  Heck, I may even bake a pie.  With weather and nature at it's best the sky is the limit.

For now, my only agenda (other than the usual weekday crazy) is deciding which family picture I like best to put in my annual "Fall Family Picture" frame.  

1-  A nice shot, but a little further back than I usually have it.  When I zoom in more all you see is the hay bales and the background doesn't look so hot.  Still, a nice pic.

2- I like this background better, but Grace isn't looking, Ben looks ticked off, and Joey is holding an apple up in the air for some strange reason.  Hmmm.  Decisions, decisions.

So tell me, friends, how has fall been treating you?  Are you soaking it in or still trying to get the hang of schedules and school and craziness?  Let me have it. What makes fall special to you? 

Hosted by Krystyn at Really, Are You Serious?