October was such a FULL month with so much local fall fun! The weather was beautiful the entire month, so we found ourselves spending lots of time outside.
This was at the end of September, but since I haven’t updated the blog since then, I will include it in this post. I organized a class field trip to a local small business- an ice cream shop! My 1st grade class, along with a few parent volunteers all had a BLAST! We got to see the ice cream being made, got to check out the candy store room, got to walk into the deep freezer (the whole class fit inside!) and got to make our own ice cream scoops. What a blast!
We started out the month with a trip to the sunflower field in Yellow Springs. We do this every year and this year the flowers bloomed really late and were fairly short. It was still absolutely stunning, though! I’m thankful that my kids, my husband and my parents all humored me went to see the blooms!
Can you believe that this fall was my 10 year college homecoming? I graduated from college 10 years ago?!?!?! Theo gets together with some of his college friends about once a year for a fun guy trip. This year they decided to come to Cedarville for the 10 year reunion, and Theo hosted them all at our house. The kids and I left the house and went to stay at my parents house for the weekend. My parents were supposed to be home, but they ended up going to a funeral in PA that weekend so I was solo parenting. We still got to go to campus and participate in lots of fun activities…finding the new Orion coffee shop, the cardboard canoe race, visiting the Children’s library in the main library, going to the parade (BEST parade I’ve been to!), going to chapel, having a 10 year reunion luncheon, and walking around campus.
Not going to lie, that weekend WIPED me out. I got home and was not feeling great, but I ended up having a ton of laundry from the 10 people who stayed at my house. It took me a solid week to catch up! But there was not much rest for the weary, because the following weekend was also packed with fun!
We had a school field trip to the Waynesville Fall Fest on Friday morning. The fall festival is closed except to field trips on that day, and it was SO FUN…not crowded at all, and we were basically there with all of our friends. Plus, I’m actually pretty sure that we saved money doing it that way than just attending on a normal day. This is a HUGE fall festival and they have SO MUCH FUN STUFF to do. I barely took any pictures, but we enjoyed the hay ride (more like a safari truck ride), played mini golf, went to the petting zoo, played on the massive playground, rode go-karts, and played some shuffleboard. I really hope that we do this again next year!
We ran straight from the field trip to a staff meeting. Orion was a bit cranky in childcare, so I took him out and fed him and then he fell asleep. Only too bad for me because we were doing an “active threat” drill for staff meeting, so I ended up taking him with me and then just rocking in this rocking chair while we did our drill. Those things are NOT easy to think about….ever. But I think it helped me stay calm to have this little moment even in the middle of thinking of a horrible scenario.
The next day was a special day…Kiah’s birthday!! He turned 7 years old this month. What. HOW. I got a sitter for the three other kids and took Kiah on a date to a BMX bike park. We had a BLAST. SO MUCH FUN. Then that evening he had five friends over for a little party. They jumped on the trampoline, painted dinosaur night lights, opened presents, went for a ride in the back of Theo’s truck (on our property) and had some cake!
Of course, in the midst of all of these BIG events, we also have just normal everyday life things that I never want to gloss over or forget about. In fact, these average and everyday moments are probably the moments that we will remember the most!
Kiah’s birthday was on a Saturday, and on Sunday Ezra started sniffling and coughing a bit. By Sunday night he was in full on asthma attack mode. He needed his breathing treatments every two hours in the night, and his pulse ox was very low. Theo had to get up early and go into work, but as soon as I got up, I decided that he should be going in to the hospital or urgent care. I got the kids some breakfast, then packed a bag or two, then drove the three kids to my parents’s house and Ezra to the hospital. They kept him in the ER for 6 hours to give him breathing treatments and to observe him, and then finally in the late afternoon decided to admit him to the hospital. I was with him all day, and as soon as Theo got off work he came to spend the night at the hospital. In the morning, my Mom took the early shift and got to the hospital by 6am so Theo could leave and get home to shower and get to work. I got everyone out the door for school (I took the day off) and then went to the hospital to stay with Ezra. He was finally released around 1pm, but was still recovering for several more days. Asthma- zero stars. Do not recommend! It was exhausting!
It took me quite awhile to recover from that event, too! Again, too bad life doesn’t have a pause or slow down button…but since it doesn’t, we just had to keep on keeping on. But at least Orion is cute…and the fall colors are STUNNING right now!
My Mom and I went to Charm at the Farm with all the kids. It basically sprinkled on us the whole time, with a few downpours here and there. We still really enjoyed walking around and checking out all the booths. I love to see how creative people are!
We rounded out the month with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge. We spent about four hours at the waterpark and then crashed in our room for the night. The big kids slept well, but Ori didn’t sleep at wink and therefore neither did I. So for day 2 I took Ori home and Theo did another waterpark day with the kids. We love this yearly tradition and look forward to it each year! We usually go with a bunch of friends from school so that makes it even more fun! Bonus that we live so close that I could abandon ship when it wasn’t so fun anymore haha.
The final weekend of October usually involves a couple trunk or treat activities and this is usually when the weather turns rainy and cold and all the leaves fall off the trees within one or two days.
Phew, I was just wondering this morning why I feel so tired. Now that I wrote this blog post, I know why!
And I’ll leaven you with this picture of Theo and Ori…. I had taken Ori out of the stroller to go up some stairs, and when I put him back in I didn’t buckle him. A couple minutes later, Theo was standing in line at trunk or treat and said he “felt something tickling his leg”. He looked down to see what it was- thinking a dog – and realized that Ori was almost completely fallen out of his seat, hanging on for dear life! Hahaha. We laughed so hard. *This phot was a reenactment*
That is a wrap on our fall fun- now the holiday months/marathon begins!