fall tradition

 After a wonderful thanksgiving with friends and family and food it seems that I'm thinking lots about tradition and how the boys will remember their childhoods.  Certainly our annual trek to gather pumpkins and apples will hold fondness for them.  The first year we visited this farm I was pregnant with Kyan, the next he couldn't stand up on his own yet and we propped him up with pumpkins.  We had hay ride hysterics the following year and last year we shared the trek with my parents on their visit and I was pregnant with Elliott.

All the boys loved our excursion and obviously pumpkins are very popular around here being orange, part of Halloween festivities and being the perfect kind of pie filling. (a rival to rhubarb in my taste buds but not to Ky's)

With many that I love far away I find I appreciate the times I get to spend with friends and family that are here all the more.  I try and cherish these moments and despite the fact that it can be hard to get my butt in gear to make the hour long drive it is always worth it.  I came away from this day grounded in a way that only picking your own fruits can do.  Interacting with the trees, watching the wasps fly around us in crazy fall frenzies, feeling a part of the hoards of parents and children having their farm experience and at the same time feeling separate from them.  

Cherish is the word that keeps floating through my head.  Cherish friends who are more like siblings, cherish food grown by local farmers, cherish fall as it sweeps the earth clean before her winter rest, and present opportunities for the young ones to cherish the things you do as another year goes round.