It's all down hill from here!

I know -- fall technically started in September, but for me it isn't officially fall until October.  Usually September has a little bit of a split personality feel for me.  The calendar says we are in school, but the weather says we should be sitting on a beach somewhere soaking up the last of the warm summer weather.  Well maybe not so much in Rhode Island, but considering before this year I had never spent fall north of North Carolina - September is usually HOT!  In fact, it wasn't even that bad up here, but I don't intend to split hairs about the annual temperature of the state of Rhode Island.  If you came for that, then I am sorry, you will be disappointed.  If you came to see what the month of October had in store for the Wellons clan, then grab a chair.  Perhaps a tissue or two, I am sure you will be laughing/crying in no time.

Right out of the gate we have a watermelon growing in our garden.  So?  Well it is a mystery because we didn't actually plant watermelon in our pitiful garden.  Best we can determine is that someone (or two or three) was eating a watermelon slice and dropped a seed in the dirt.  We did, in fact, plant pumpkin seeds.  A whole pack of them, but something found the seedlings quite delectable because every single time one sprouted it was gone!  POOF! So when the mystery vine popped up we were very surprised.  Even more surprised when it stuck around long enough to flower and then grow into a melon!  I talked the children into letting it grow until Halloween so we could carve it with the pumpkins.  They thought I was crazy!!  They have NO IDEA!!

Next up on this crazy train was a stop at the local corn maze.  This is our first experience with the corn maze and I will tell you I didn't really know what to expect.  We went with a neighbor because, the more the merrier right?  Well, that really just depends on your definition of merrier.  Here we are heading into the maze.  There are five children and two adults all in a row for about two minutes, then poof! - children gone!!  That left the two adults panicking while searching through this thing.  "Children of the Corn" sound bites kept flashing through my head - "Malachi, he wants you too." To confuse and frighten me more, other quotes from Raising Arizona would get intermingled - SHUDDER! 

right before all the children vanished!

 Of course we found the kids!  Or rather they started talking and we tracked them down.  I would not want to do a corn maze at dark.  Not only would that just be super duper scary, but I swear, I would still be there wandering around freaked out that I was in a corn field AT NIGHT!  At the start of the maze, we were told about bridges that were inside that would link us to different parts of the maze.  I was not really clear if that meant a short cut passage or an actual bridge.  If I am totally being honest here, I didn't even really consider the actual bridge scenario.  Boy was I in for a surprise when we turned a corner and BAM - a real bridge.  It is amazing how fast 5 children in a corn maze can kill an afternoon.  We navigated the maze successfully and after a short hay ride we packed it in and headed for home.

Safe on the bridge

Nothing but corn for miles

We survived the maze!

Since we have lived in Florida for 5 years, the kids (with the exception of Lilly) have never REALLY seen the trees change colors or experienced the never-ending fun of playing in a leaf pile.  Lilly had the one year in Montgomery, AL when she was three.  Although she has no memory of it, I do have some pictures of her buried in the leaves and thoroughly enjoying herself.  That being said, we decided to hit the road over Columbus Day weekend to travel up to Vermont to see some "peak fall foliage."  The day started out good enough.  After several days of planning and plotting, Jim picked what we hoped was going to be a good destination along what had been billed as a "colorful scenic drive" to Grafton, VT. We got the kids in the car without too much of a fight and plugged them into the leapsters/DS screens (don't judge us).  The drive up was fairly uneventful with some nice fall colors once we got into the Green Mountains.  The "leaf peeper" app I downloaded assured us that the leaves had not "peaked" yet so when we finally got to Grafton, we were a tad disappointed.  Not the vibrant red, orange and yellows we were going for AT ALL!!  We grabbed some lunch and toured Grafton, a teeny tiny village in the middle of no-where Vermont.  According to the Town Clerk's website it is "rapidly growing." I am guessing the word "rapidly" is open for interpretation.  

Not to be deterred, Jim sets a new course that is SURE to show us the colors we are after and we are off!  I jokingly pointed out that this adventure was starting to remind me of our infamous scallop hunt of 2011.  He laughed nervously, but I could tell that we might indeed be heading in that direction yet again.  

We found many, many covered bridges.  Those things kind of creep me out.  I always think of the movie "Beetlejuice."  I know that makes three movie references in this entry, I don't even want to know what that means about me or my taste in movies. Here are a few pictures we took on the road. 

 

Literally, on the road.  Notice the caution sign

While in Grafton, we toured a maple syrup "factory".  I used quotation marks because Jim and I differ on exactly what kind of operation it really was.  True I stayed in the car while Jim and the kids took the tour so I can only base my judgement on what I could actually see from my front seat.  I will re-enact it for you.
Jim: Hey according to the cheese shop guy there is a maple syrup factory down the road.
Me: I guess we are going then right?
Jim: We'd be crazy not too!

Continue to drive down the road. 

Jim: This is it!
Me: THIS is it?  Not much of a "factory".  

We are pulling into a dirt drive way up to an OLD red barn and house that looks like there is ZERO insulation and maybe not indoor plumbing.

Jim: Who wants to go with me to buy some syrup?
Me: Hmm, pass.
Kids: ME! ME! ME!

I watch the children and Jim walk into the "store" part of the barn.  I can hear Jim trying to make conversation with the guy who really is not all that enthused. He eventually offers to show Jim and the kids "where I make the syrup" after Jim hinted around the subject for a good 10 minutes.  I watch them walk about 100 yards to a second not much better structurally looking barn.  They are gone for about oh, 5 minutes before walking back to the car.  Everyone gets in and we begin to drive out.  

Me: Well?
Jim: That guy was a complete a$%@! 
Me: Yeah, I picked up on that.  How was the "factory"?
Jim: He has a pretty impressive operation given that it is basically just him and a few members of his family.  They produce over 25,000 gallons of syrup a year.  His prices are pretty high too!

I won't torture you further by continuing the conversation.  You can draw your own conclusions.  Just to add some credence to this story, here are a few pictures.  What they say is true, a picture tells a thousand words.  In this instance, none of them good.

The Maple Syrup "Factory"

Such happy faces, happy to be leaving maybe?

We started our return 3.5 hour trip back to Rhode Island unfulfilled.  Again, I am not completely sure what we were looking to get out of this trip, IT'S JUST LEAVES JIM!  The kids definitely had no clue what we were doing and they had long since given up on this particular bucket list item.  Finally on the side of Interstate 91, somewhere out the outskirts of Springfield, we pulled into the back lot of a lumber store and trudged through a semi-muddy field to take these pictures.

Naturally, we left the tripod at home so there isn't one of all of us together.  I am seriously considering trying to just add either my head into Jim's picture or vice versa and call the Christmas picture - DONE!

The next weekend I escaped to Swansboro for my High School reunion/Mullet Festival.  I have no idea what went on in Rhode Island while I was gone.  Well that isn't really true, because Jim and the kids called/texted me quite a bit to share with me and to ask me what I was doing.  

Apparently, while Mommy is away you run around the streets of Newport and get ice cream.  Hmmm, that just seems wrong.

Well, enough about them, back to me!!  I had a BLAST!! I haven't been home for a Mullet Festival for 6 years!!  The reunion was oh so fun too, everyone looked great!! I got several questions about where Jim was and I had just been answering that I had left him.  Well after the second or third awkward conversation about how hard marriage was and so forth, I admended my answer to Jim was at home with the kids.  OOPS!  I hope we don't have to wait another 25 years before our next one.  So between the Mullet and the reunion, it was almost like a two-for-one deal for me.  I just love a bargin!! I dragged Nanny back to Rhode Island with me at the end of the weekend for a short visit.  She complained it wasn't long enough, but I am sure she slept better once she was home because between the children and Oscar I don't think she spent one night in her bed alone!

Kisses for Nanny!

The last weekend of soccer is upon us!  I have enjoyed watching the kids improve, but it is still extremely frustrating for me to watch them play.  Nonetheless here are some "action shots."

Trophy time!!

The ONLY reason Lucy agreed to play

Ben's trophy lasted exactly 35 minutes before he snapped it in half!

He told me not to worry and just "gorilla-glue it mommy."  So glad he has such faith in my gluing abilities.  For those of you keeping score: Ben 2, Trophies 0.  

So soccer is behind us that only leaves one MAJOR event, HALLOWEEN, and a few minor ones left for the month.  The kids of course are super excited and I have had their costumes hidden from them for the entire month, otherwise they would all be going as hobos because the costumes would be in SHREDS!!

Oh look, here is a picture of the kids I took a BLOCK from our house.  Look at those beautiful fall colors.  Shhh, don't tell Jim.

I ran a 5K!

A few days before Halloween we were visited by Hurricane Sandy.  If you were watching the Weather Channel it would appear that Rhode Island was basically wiped off the map.  I am not saying that the state as a whole didn't sustain some damage, but we were very lucky in Jamestown.

Of course as soon as the storm passed the kids wanted to know if Halloween was going to be cancelled.  It wasn't, thank goodness because I don't think I would have been able to tell them that.  

Remember our old friend the watermelon?  Well he made it to Halloween!!  Here he is with all his friends.

doesn't he look great!!

Lucy, Ben and Lilly waiting oh so patiently to head out

 Finally it was time to hit the streets!  We had some friends join us, the more the merrier is usually how we roll!! 

The highlight of the evening of course is all the candy! However, Jamestown adds a twist.  The local Fire Department fills their parking lot with foam and the kids run around completely covered and soaked to the bone.  I will say I was not encouraging the children to participate due to the fact that it was a school night AND they were already all hopped up on the Halloween night sugar high.  Throw in the fact that it was COLD and, well, it was a no-brainer for me.  Some smart people had towels and blankets to dry off their children and I considered it but in the end I just REALLY didn't want them to do it.  We walked up to the edge of the foam and the kids put their feet in and immediately said "I don't want to do this".  YEAH!!!  Mommy wins!!  Of course the next day they were all like "why didn't you let us do it?" I had to remind them that it was their decision.

Look at all that cold foam.  By the end it was SEVERAL FEET DEEP!

What? Don't I get to have any fun?

After the kids went to bed, I realized I had not taken a picture of them in their costumes by themselves!  WHAT?! How did that happen?  Well being the bad mommy that I am, I woke them up a wee bit earlier than I normally do and made them put the costumes back on for a few pictures.  Jim says I am crazy, but we all already know this so it isn't a shock!

 Next up, Turkey time!!