Fall is in the air!

We are having such a fun fall season. The leaves are all changing color and falling all around. It is so fun to see it. When I went to Costco the other day I actually noticed I was crunching leaves on the way back to my car. Massive amounts of yellow and red leaves that had fallen. there are so many trees here though that I can't really tell where they fell from, it still seems like there are leaves on all the trees. I love it. It is beautiful to see.
Yesterday, (Saturday) we went to a farm called "The Pumpkin Patch". It was so much fun. It is on a little island just north of Portland (about 15 min. from us - if you don't make a wrong turn :) called Sauvie Island. There was a gift shop, a market (with a great variety of inexpensive vegetables and squash), and a big barn with animals to look at.


They had free hay rides which take you out to the huge pumpkin patch (they had pre-picked pumpkins up by the market, but David thought this would be a much better adventure). You can pick your own pumpkins, then you ride the hayride back and pay the men that are there when you get off. We ended up getting a pretty big pumpkin (like the normal size you get at a store) and 3 smaller pumpkins for $6. The prices were great. I forgot to take pictures of our pumpkins so I will put them on later.

It wasn't really cold, we had our hoods up because it was drizzling. It stopped shortly after we got there.

My camera got water on it but I had to show what Samson looks like when he gets wet. David thinks he looks like a chihuahua (sometimes he calls him a little rat).

This patch was huge. This is most of it, but there were still more pumpkins to the left.

When we got off the hayride, I saw how muddy it was and I pretty much stayed put in one spot on the hay on the side of the road. You could tell who had been here before and who hadn't. Some people were very prepared with rain boots and old clothes. That will be us next year. The shoes got so bad (believe it or not, everything got clean at the end of the day - nothing was stained).

It is hard to say who had more fun, David or Katie. The kids can't wait to go again. I have to say I had a blast, but I did have a 10 min. freak out session about the mess. I got over it eventually, but I was a little upset for a bit. It was so worth it though. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It will definitely be a tradition for us while we live up here.

Emma was such a big help with Katie. She took great care of her in the field when I wasn't willing to go out in the mud.

Joelle is standing where the rest of the pumpkins were. There were so many vegetables growing everywhere. I loved the Market. I wish I could go get my veggies there every weekend.

Look at the mud! Two inches thick at least. I took this picture after about 5 min. in the field. We were in there for a total of about 30 min. Try to imagine what it looked like then. I took a picture but it didn't really turn out. Katie had mud caked all over her legs.

This was on our ride back. We ended up taking an extra ride before we left because it was so fun. I kind of hope our pumpkins rot so we can go back before Halloween :).

At the end of the hay ride they had these huge Hay Pyramids for the kids to play on. This was Ben's favorite part of the day. They played for at least an hour on these things. There were 3 of them, but this was the largest. David kept having to get up and help kids up to the top. It was so cute. What a great Dad (I'm sure he loved it - I even climbed up there :).

It really was the perfect place to get pumpkins.