Friday, November 2, 2012

Fall Fun!

Fall is beautiful here in Michiana.  The colors of the trees are breathtaking, and it's impossible to get a good photo that captures the glory of the season.  It's a wonderful time of year - everything is cool and crisp.  But then the leaves start to fall, and fall, and fall some more.  Until there is a massive sea of leaves in the yard. Thankfully, our house came with a leaf blower, and the city comes by a few times with this really cool truck that sucks up the leaves you have raked to the curb into this giant vacuum thing.  We had lots of fun watching that.


Our area is known for the apples grown here.  Because of the unusually hot summer and drought, the crops weren't as plentiful this year, but the Niles Apple Festival was just as fun! A large fair ground with arts and crafts, carnival rides, face painting, food, and free fudge samples? Yes, please!



First taste of cotton candy
First carousel ride - she had a blast!
And no festival is complete without a parade - Maryn's first! Here we are waiting under the awesome shady trees where we watched the fun.



Where else can a toddler enjoy the sights of military vehicles, beauty queens, McGruff the crime fighting dog, loud firetrucks, marching drum lines, tractors, horses, and Maryn's favorite, a man dressed like a trash can?! All the while chasing after candy thrown right to you!  Maryn was in heaven.







We had a fall surprise a couple of weeks ago - my Gramps and Grammy came to visit! They were driving home from a vacation on the east coast and decided to stop by.  We enjoyed spending the evening with them and eating at our favorite Mexican restaurant!


The clinic I work for hosted a fall family festival for employees and their families.  There were all kinds of fun games, pony rides, pumpkin painting and other crafts, and of course good food. Maryn's favorite was the little puppy she got to chase after.




Another fall favorite in the Smith household is football, of course.  We love cheering on our Sooners.  It's been fun to try to pass on this tradition to Maryn - she loves yelling OU! and Boomer Sooner!  Unfortunately, our latest game against Notre Dame didn't go so well.  But it has been fun to be here at Notre Dame when they are doing so well. Gotta love college football in a college town.  And we hope that ND goes all the way!



Our season zoo pass got us free entrance to their annual Zoo Boo, which was a lot of fun.  Maryn loved getting to dress up - Minnie Mouse was her costume choice.  They had a huge area to walk through and get candy from local vendors.  Although getting candy directly from the animals would have been more fun, haha.


Trick or treat, Lion! 

Our friends the Esteps joined us.  The next two pics of Maryn and Elliott crack me up.  Classic.  I could totally make up about 20 different conversations to go along with their facial expressions.




And finally, we enjoyed Halloween evening at home.  Maryn was quite pleased to be able to dress up a second time.  And I must say she was the cutest Minnie that ever there was.  We trick-or-treated at the 6 houses surrounding ours, and then came back home to greet the other neighborhood kids.  I think Maryn thought answering the door and passing out candy was just as fun as going door to door herself.  This is the first time that Billy and I have lived in a neighborhood rather than an apartment since we have been married.  It was lots of fun to have trick-or-treaters, but we were shocked at how much candy we went through! We thought we had more than enough but those kiddos cleaned us out!  It was lots of fun!



Whew! Sorry for so many pictures! But we've had such a fun fall so far! Now if Hudson would just decide to let us have a birthday party for our fall finale!  We'll keep you updated, of course!  Happy Fall to our family and friends!




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