Playing in the leaves

Chalk this up as another reason I love fall.  Watching a 2 year old run through the leaves, having a grand old time just warms my heart.  There’s something special seeing Abbie enjoy herself so much doing something as simple as playing in leaves in my parents yard.

I’m fairly certain that my parents enjoyed playing in the leaves with Abbie as much as Abbie enjoyed their company.  She’s really going to miss them, but I know she’s going to have just as much fun playing with her daddy when he gets home and I’ll have just as much fun capturing their adventures on camera too.

PS:  I took pictures for my friend Rachel, of her and her horses, recently.  She went to print some of them and the lady at the checkout asked her for a copyright release because she thought they were professional photos.  I was pretty excited about that.  I’m figuring out my camera more and more, although it really is the camera that makes the pictures amazing.

Fall in Italy

**I have no clue if I ever posted this or not, but incase I didn't, I'm going to post it again.  These are from 2011.

As I’ve said a billion times, I love fall.  And this year I got to experience two falls!  One in the States and another one in Italy a few weeks later.  Mark and I took these pictures around our town and driving to base this past weekend.  I cannot get enough of the fall colors.  I wish it was like this all year round!

Apple orchards and a train ride

Today we took Abbie up to Gays Mills, WI, which has numerous apple orchards that are hopping with activities this time of year.  Abbie had it in her mind that we were going to a park, so I’m not sure she was quite as excited about the trip as we were, and she was asking to go to the park the entire time we were gone.

The first orchard we stopped at had a corn maze that we wandered through a little bit, but it was almost Abbie’s nap time so she wanted to be carried instead of walk herself.  (And when she’s tired, she wants you to carry her in a cradle hold, not the way you’d normally carry her.)  So our jaunt through the corn/sunflower maze was pretty short lived since none of us wanted to carry a 35lb kid around for long.  She gets heavy quickly!

We headed to the second orchard and Abbie had more fun at this one since there was a kids section with face painting and swings.  Abbie loves to get her face painted and she’s really good about being very still for them.  They even gave her a pumpkin and the “princess” gave her an apple!

I just cannot get enough of the fall colors in this part of the country.  It never gets old looking at all the trees.  All of these pictures were shot out of the car window, so they’re not perfect, but they still give you an idea of how pretty it is. 

On the way home we stopped at this little train so Abbie could take a ride around the tracks a few times.  She seemed to enjoy it quite a bit and it was enough of a “park” for her.

If I could find a part of the world that had this weather (mid-70’s) and the changing leaves year round, I would move there in a heartbeat.  It’s my absolute favorite.