OtterPops: Fall Adventures

I love fall! Even though the weather has tricked us this year and been extremely dry and hot (I am talking in the mid-90s while at the pumpkin patch, people) we are still taking on some fall adventures. For the month of September I was in charge of the preschool fieldtrip so I scheduled a visit to Gizdich Ranch for some apple picking, tour of the cooler and juicing, and a "johnny appleseed" lesson. It is such a cute farm with a country ambiance and we always love going there. I took the older girls out of school to come with us, and we decided to make it a day and stop at the beach on the way home with some friends.

For Jocelyn's birthday weekend my parents came into town so we decided to head up to Pinnacles National Park which is only a little more than an hour from our house. We had heard about it, but never ventured to see the talus caves before. Although we had to leave Emma and Nana behind on the trail for the cave hiking, we had a really fun time. I wasn't sure if the kids were going to make it. It seemed they were passing around an invisible "whining baton." Lillian was carrying it at first whining constantly until we got to the caves and she told us "these are actually pretty cool!" at which point Jocelyn decided to take up the burden of whining constantly until she gave up and passed it on to Jonas who carried it through to the end of the hike. I am hoping that repeated exposure and positive attitudes from Jared and I will help them get over this stage, but we still managed to have a fun time despite the whining and I think they felt successful in the end.

We also hit up the local pumpkin patch in conjunction with Jonas's preschool fieldtrip. I, again, checked the girls out of school (with the justification that their school district has no money for fieldtrips, so I need to provide my own :) Plus, you can't beat the price for all four kids on fieldtrip day and doing all the rides and bonus activities. It was so hot that we had to hit up McDonald's for some ice water and ice cream cones on the way home. I seriously thought we were going to be dehydrated plus we needed to kill some time because Jared was working from home that afternoon and I didn't want the kids being too rowdy at home.