Mommy's Blog: Apples, athletes and little night-owls...

October has arrived!

Of course, the only real evidence of this can be found in the bags of apple-day apples in our kitchen, and the large pile of fabric (aka "Costumes-in-the-making") in our dining room. A few leaves are changing but it has been hard to notice them, what with the continued summer -like weather.

Not to mention the continued pace of our activities, with nights-out and festive events and social drinking happening at a rate commensurate with summer vacation.

Of course, summer vacation it is decidedly NOT. We are balancing these full-of-joy-and sunshine weekends with the early mornings and nonstop days of school, the afternoons of activities, and the additional fun of my radiation treatments, which started this week. So far, they are no more than a scheduling inconvenience. I hear tell that I will experience fatigue a few weeks in. I say to that-- bring it on. I see your fatigue and raise you "that's just the way I live my life." Coffee exists for a reason. And these past few weeks that reason has been -- so much joy, so many activities, so many friends to drink with, so much sunshine, so many apples.....

This October, we are doing ALL the things.

A recap:

We finished out September with a family trip to Night Market. Nat and I had hoped for a date night there but ended up taking the kids when babysitting did not work out.

It turned out surprisingly well. While this is not always the case, there are times that these two little people make things a LOT more fun.

So does cotton candy. The kids' first experience with it (an oversight on our part, obviously). Jack was NOT a fan. Ivy most definitely was. She finished the majority of this serving.

Ivy spent much of the evening at the Art Cart, of course. She charmed this random lady. I love the community, friendly feel of our Cleveland festivals.

I love being out in our magical city at night, exploring new neighborhoods, sights, smells... out in the softness of the fall air... with these people of my heart.

A weekend trip to Peace Park. Hoping and hoping that our local group gets the chance to redevelop this space in the sensitive, "Heights-friendly" way that they have proposed. I don't want to lose the magic of this community space, this piece of our neighborhood that we have grown to take for granted...

Not to mention this hill-- great for sledding AND rolling down, it turns out.

Sunday-- a morning at Disciples Church where Ivy participated in the diaper collection for hurricane victims, and I sang with the combined choir for "World Communion Day," where the other congregation that uses the building joined ours for the service-- and a lot of singing. What a joyful, loving and community-minded space was created that morning. Churches really aren't all bad, it they're done right...

Ivy and I had to leave a bit early, though, because we had another joyful experience to get to-- Apple Day!

These three ladies have been together for this tradition since they were in-utero.

It is one of our favorite days of the year.

Jack is brandishing Nat's invention-- the apple-picker that only LOOKS like a lacrosse stick.

It's also one of the easiest days of the year. Seriously. We just walk around an orchard, eating and picking apples.

We take pictures.

Then we lay around on blankets and sit in the back of vans and eat snacks and donuts and drink coffee and it is AWESOME.

Not content to just go home on a glorious day like this one, we decided to stop for a quick visit at Lake Farmpark.

More hills to roll down.

Lasso-ing and cider-making and sitting in the sun...

And of course the corn maze!

This picture of Ivy getting her undercut touched-up is to show you how much my girl adores haircuts. That blissed-out little smile.

A week of early mornings and long exhausting days of being needed and driving back and forth to the Clinic... and we were suddenly back to the weekend!

It is never a moment too soon-- and never without a full schedule!

Friday: Cleveland Heights homecoming parade!

Dinner at Dewey's...

And our annual attendance at a sports-ball game. (the home team was still winning when this photo was taken...)

Jack went to dinner AND stayed til the bitter end of the game with his friend Finn and his family. When did he get so grown up?

By the time we got our little night owls to bed -- our friends Mike and Chaya had arrived to hang out for a bit. We ended up staying out on the porch talking and laughing and sharing some beers til about one a.m. Crazy kids, aren't we?

No rest for the weary, though.... Saturday morning brought swimming, then soccer...

... then more socializing! We had some wonderful friends over for dinner. We made them spend time with chickens...

... and shared more Dewey's pizza, a terrific dessert buffet, and a whole lot of laughter and great conversation.

These kids are entirely too big. The bigs have known one another since infancy and preschool... which makes them pretty long-term friends at this point.

And today-- more activity! We got up early to head to the Heights Happy 5K. Joyful, loving, community-minded... a lovely fall morning spent in one of our great business district, enjoying our architecture and our neighbors. Bonus: nudging our kiddos towards an active, healthy lifestyle!

This kid! He decided he would run the 5K this year, and run it he did. With virtually no training he ran it-- by himself-- in 29:22. SO proud of him.

And the little one-- she earned her first race medal by running her heart out in the mile. 10:39, her best ever by far.

After taking the kids to a birthday party for a friend (and quite a bit of time laying around home to recover!) we capped off our weekend by using our 5K drink vouchers at Bottlehouse brewery. We let these kids get hopped up on expensive rootbeer, played three rousing rounds of Jenga, and had a genuinely fun night out on the town with our little family.