Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Autumn Days

The mornings start cool, the days become warm.
The colors of gold and red cover the leaves, the wind causing them to dance.
The first frost has come and now the garden sits quiet.
Pumpkins decorate our home,  puzzles now sit on the table.  
Soups have found their way onto our menu again, our evening walks now done at dusk.
Candles light our nights, and maybe once or twice our fireplace has been found on already.
We dream of coming vacations and plan for coming holidays.
School has been going for two months, our days having fallen into a nice rhythm.  


Oh, Autumn Days, how we adore you...


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We were able to spend a weekend in Wyoming digging for fossils with our friends from Church.  The morning started cool and rainy.  We all forgot to bring sweaters or jackets so on our way we stopped at the local Wally World.  Of course, by the time we made it to the fossil dig, the sun was peaking through and the day ended up being perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold.    We were there for six hours, the older kids and the Dads digging for and hammering apart rocks, looking for the fossils. The younger ones spent the day climbing the piles of limestone, looking for their own treasures.  




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One beautiful weekend we made the drive up into the mountains just as the colors were beginning to change.  We drove around, got out and wandered through the trees, always our eyes watching for elk.  



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We celebrated the new season with a party!  We played games and enjoyed a potluck together.  Our first game was an obstacle course.  The children were split into two teams.  They had to run and climb over four bales of hay, ride a tricycle across the patio, crawl through a cardboard tunnel, hop on one foot across the lawn twister board, roll a pumpkin through some cones,  climb up the rock wall on the playhouse and slide down the slide, dress up like a scarecrow, jump on the trampoline five times and then run back to their team.  We laughed and clapped and cheered the teams on!  We then had a donut eating contest.  The donuts were all on a string and they had be the first to complete the task of eating them without the aid of their hands and without them falling.  :)  Our third game was twister, which we had painted on to the grass.  We then enjoyed a potluck dinner and ended the evening around the fire pit.  My-oh-my, how fun it was!  
















These are the beautiful days of Autumn.