Cramming Even More In...

Once again this weekend, knowing our fall time is limited, I crammed in all the things.  Before I get to that, on Thursday I was at my desk at home working late and noticed the sky was glowing.  I got up to go see it outside, and ended up seeing this first as I walked out the door!

This was in the other direction!

It was so pretty and probably much needed at the end of a very long work day, near the end of a long work week.  Work has been stressful--not only are my boss and I still overwhelmed after losing the other position on our team late last year, but numbers are down slightly and while we know it's all due to timing of when things were sent out last year compared to this year, our new boss (who we very much like) is probably being a bit too proactive based on pressure from her boss, and she just hasn't been around our team long enough to trust that what we're doing is fine.  It leaves us with a lot of unnecessary stress and some rabbit hole projects that actually don't need to happen yet, which is frustrating when we're already busy.  We'll get through it, but it makes work a bit burdensome currently.

It's no wonder then, that I once again wanted to make the most of our weekend before it was back to the grind.  Foliage is peak in a lot of areas and this was our last chance to enjoy it in a purposeful way before three weeks of travel.  Weather looked to cooperate, so I hatched a plan for Carter and me to go back to Stony Brook, which we loved a couple years ago, and then pick up Livingston County Pizza (including Jacob's beloved donuts) on our way back.  We got a slightly later start than expected due to a lazy morning and pushing myself to do a workout (arms only--I knew my legs would get plenty that day!), but we packed up bag lunches for the hour drive and headed out sometime after noon.  

As we pulled in, I was a little confused.  Everything looked the same on the drive in, but when we got to the parking lot, I didn't see a playground, which used to sit just beyond it.  Sure enough, it had been wiped off the face of the earth, with just an empty stone lot in its spot.  Luckily, we quickly turned around and saw a new one just down the way.  It looked cool, but definitely not the same variety of equipment the last one had.  Apparently it just got replaced this spring because the old one had "deteriorated" in past years.  It was pretty nice when we were there, but whatever.  I keep hoping they'll have some playground-ish plans for the empty lot, but I doubt it since the new one had to be expensive and isn't far away.  Carter and I still had fun exploring this new one.

He was a trooper climbing up that role pole near the center of the pic below because it was extra tall, and that log rope climb he's on to the right of it was a lot harder than it looks!  Those logs barely qualify as a foothold, so it took a lot of focus and arm strength to get up it!

He got in some pole climbing and monkey bars until his hands were sore, so I suggested we go hike and come back after his hands had time to recover.  The hike was so beautiful.  The leaves were gorgeous and the gorge did not disappoint.

I decided to go out the Gorge Trail and back the East Rim Trail.  Last time we went out the West Rim Trail and back via the Gorge Trail (which I believe was a COVID mandate at the time), but I figured doing a reverse order would get us some new views we might not have turned around to see last time, and the new trail was a different experience entirely.  The color near the swimming hole at the start of the trail was gorgeous.

I love the bridges in the park, and that tree to the left was a favorite of mine last time as well because it had all the colors on it--reds, oranges, yellows, and greens.  But how 'bout that handsome kid on the bridge?

The height of the walls always amazes me.  It's so majestic.

Carter thought we should take a selfie in one spot.  He cracks me up.  But I didn't say no!

Every waterfall and turned corner provided another postcard-worthy scene.

There were a couple photographers in this spot (on the other side of the bridge near the stream) taking photos.  

This waterfall below is my favorite!  I think it looks like a cascading bridal skirt or a lovely layer cake or something.  It's so pretty and peaceful.  

The view from the top is stunning as well.

Here's the other big waterfall.  The water here was so clear (and cold) and we loved wandering around near the base.  Carter was trying to skip stones.

The view from the top of this one was nice as well.

Carter picked up a walking stick along the way.  Or rather, he found a stick and (after his expert stick-breaking work last weekend) broke it to fit.  He eventually took great enjoyment in launching it over the fence on the rim trail, but it didn't get very far due to getting hung up in thick foliage.

It was such a pleasant day.  We actually left mid-50s, clouds, and strong wind gusts at home to get to partly cloudy, mid-60s, and calm winds at Stony Brook.  It was a perfect day for a hike and short sleeves were just fine.  I was extra relieved that the winds weren't an issue there because all those trees in 40mph gusts probably wouldn't have been safe.  I wondered if that kept some people away because the park wasn't busy at all.  Maybe only a few dozen cars in the lot, which was nothing in comparison to last time when we were in satellite parking down the entry road.  It was the peak pandemic outdoor activity era, and Letchworth closed due to crowds that day, which probably made Stony Brook a good second choice.  This time, very quiet!

We got through the many, many steps near the end of the gorge trail and wandered past the West Rim Trail entrance to the East Rim Trail.  There was another scenic bridge in this spot.
  

Looking from that bridge, you can see some of the old railroad supports in the middle of the water.  It was removed in the 1940s but the supports remain all over that section of the park.

I had read reviews that this trail had some good fungi, which I was excited about, but I think most of it was covered with leaves at this point.  I did finally find these tiny ones growing out of a piece of wood.

There were so many stairs!  This was looking back at one set we went up.  We took these very slow and steady, all while I watched my heart rate elevate on my watch.  There were a couple large flights up, but thankfully a lot of the trail went downhill after that.  We did feel bad for people going the other way!

Carter found this cool leaf near another set of stairs.

Rim trails never seem to have many views, and this was no exception, but we could see the last big waterfall we saw on the gorge trail from afar.

Out in the distance you could see a lot of color on the distant trees.  We were up really high, to the point it definitely felt a couple degrees cooler there.

The East Rim Trail was a bit longer so in the end it was a 2.5 mile walk.  I think Carter was a little relieved when we reached the end, and I guess I was too, but I was more preoccupied with getting to our pizza, which was actually coming up as ready right around the time we left the trail, despite us having a half hour drive there.  I knew that might happen and told them that, so I wasn't worried, but we had plans for the night so I was eager to stay on schedule for that, too.  This was the view off the bridge at the end of the trail.

Carter wanted to go back to the playground for one more climb, so we did that rather quickly.  I was still a little disappointed that I didn't see much good fungi, and spent the end of the hike hoping for a random redeeming patch that never materialized.  Well, on the way to the car from the playground, POOF, there it was!
 

It's hard to tell from the photo, but they were silvery in the sunlight.  There was actually a very large patch of them, and each one was probably 4-5 inches tall.  I was mildly entertained and probably looked like a weirdo taking a bunch of pictures, but it was a fun way to end it.  We had a lovely drive back through Geneseo to get to Livingston County Pizza.  I always love driving through Geneseo anyway, but in the fall it is at its absolute best.  I am seriously overdue for another wander around campus and the village.  The entire drive was actually really pretty and thankfully that drive is such habit that it made all the driving that day really tolerable.  We got home around 5:30 and ate as a family, but Carter's and my day wasn't over yet!

I'd hatched a somewhat crazy but still feasible plan to try to right the wrongs of the failed Darien Lake trip back in August.  Last week I bought season passes for Carter and me for next year.  It was a pretty good deal - about $60 per person, and parking is included, which is a $17 savings per trip.  It'll be either a Christmas or birthday gift (but probably Christmas because I don't want to keep the secret any longer).  This will allow us to just go when we feel like it--take a half day and go, or just go at night, or just do the waterpark, or whatever.  When we had season passes as a family when I was 12 or so, I loved when we did stuff like that.  There was less panic to do all the things because we could go back another time.  I recall some great waterpark time and awesome evenings where lines were shorter and it wasn't as hot.  I wanted to have that opportunity with Carter, and knowing we had to go back anyway for the rides we missed, I figured even one more trip beyond that would totally make it worthwhile, even at the discounted ticket rates I can get through work.  And with purchase, we could go free for the rest of this year, too.  So, other than gas, it would be a relatively free night.  Yes, it would mean hours #3 and #4 in the car for the day, and it was guaranteed to be a late night with a 7-10pm window once we got there, plus it would probably be in the upper 40s.  But this was our last chance since the season was ending, and at least we'd get to see the park for the Halloween event.  I didn't tell him where we were going until we were on our way, partly in case it didn't work out and partly to give him very little time to get too excited and set unrealistic expectations.  Of course he was excited once he found out, especially once the park came into view.  

Hopefully it didn't phase him when they quickly took our pictures for our season passes at the gate (they didn't say anything luckily), but entering was quick and easy.  Once again I got a nice sunset shot of Ride of Steel, this time on our way in.
 

Slightly depressing that this was taken about two hours earlier than the last sunset one back in August.

On our way through the park we got jump scared by a random guy that skates out on all fours to scare people as part of their Halloween stuff.  Luckily I had seen a video of it from a friend of mine so I pretty quickly realized what had happened--or else I would have been even more freaked out!  

That was about where the initial fun ended, however, because a couple minutes later we walked past the drop tower and saw it was closed, and then rounded the corner to Ride of Steel, only to see that blocked off, too.  Seriously?  We had three rides on our list to ride, and two of them were closed.  How do you close your signature ride for your last night of operation?  Some people were paying a ton for this event (admission plus more for haunted houses) and in the end almost every big ride except the Viper, Boomerang, Motocoaster, and Predator were closed.  The third ride on our list, Mind Eraser, was also closed, although per the app it seemed that was never open in the fall as it was listed as "Closed for the Season".  Even Tantrum, which we finally rode last time but wanted to ride first row this, was marked as "Closed for the Season".  How annoying.  I understand that staffing is an issue and it probably made things easier to close off entire sections of the park, but I feel like they should probably be a bit more transparent about that stuff.  I was pretty bummed that my big plan to fix what the rain broke last time didn't work out, but we were there and we were going to have fun, darn it.

We got in line for one ride we'd never done, Rolling Thunder, which I honestly wasn't sure about but knew I needed to do to keep Carter sane.  It's basically an endless coaster loop.  The motion is very reminiscent of my one-time favorite, the Ranger, which looked like a blue hot dog and felt like a pirate ship that went all the way around.  Despite the different format, the sensation was almost identical, right down to hanging there at the very top of the loop.  I definitely didn't weather it as well as my teenage self did, but I made it.  The Ranger was smoother but at least this didn't have a massive pad pressing deep into your stomach (if you made the mistake of inhaling, you had a very uncomfortable ride!).  We were entertained by the nervous teenage girl across from us, though, and I was happy we got to do a new ride.
 

We got on the Viper after that, and survived another jump scare in line there.  There were a couple haunted houses in that area and apparently there were characters running out to scare people in line!  Incidentally, the whole place was crawling with obnoxious teenagers (like, I bet 85% of the people there were teenagers, and boy did I feel old) and at least twice random park-goers tried to scare us--once was a group in a line that screamed through the fence as we walked by, and another time as we were just walking and a tween kid basically came up and yelled in Carter's face.  We must have looked like ripe targets, I guess.  Definitely not enough parental supervision there!  Anyway, the good news was that we got to jump the Viper line up in the station thanks to people who were trying to match up for the same ride, which ended up saving us time we needed later!  The ride was definitely rougher in the cold than I would have preferred.  As a whole I think every coaster was rougher on my system in the cold, but I don't know if that's the track performance or how things always seem to hurt more when your body is cold.  We hit Boomerang next, which was rough as well, but at least there was no line there.  Carter really wanted to ride it again and I had to say no to preserve myself for the rest of the night.

We realized the Motocoasters were running despite that area being almost totally dark, so we headed there next.  The dark ride was crazy but a lot of fun--no lights to time out the launch, and being in the last row definitely made it intense!  We weren't going to ride the tall swings this time since it's not one of Carter's favorites, but when someone pointed out that they were going backwards for Halloween, we reconsidered!  We figured this was our one chance to do something silly like that, so we headed over.  

It was a different sensation, for sure, but I was grateful we weren't getting cold wind in our faces!  However, the breeze kicked up the string on my hood and the little metal square at the end perfectly pegged me in the eye.  It didn't really hurt but my eye watered like crazy for most of the ride and stayed hazy for the rest of the night.  It randomly watered really bad for a minute on the drive home, too, which was super nerve wracking, and it was annoying me as I went to sleep.  It felt better the next morning but as the day went on it became clear it was still not 100%.  It wasn't red but it was a little sore and still blurry.  Hopefully it clears up soon, because work isn't fun when my vision isn't good, and my vision is normally bad enough right now without an injury!

After the swings we went to the antique cars.  That's one of those rides that always has a long line for an unexciting ride, but the line was short and it was themed for Halloween, so we figured this was the time.  Carter drove, which was interesting as usual, but I'm glad we got to do it.  We met a nice older lady in line who had a giant Pikachu she won for her classroom.  She was telling us how this was probably their last year of season passes for a few reasons, but she said that she has eight kids and it's always been a challenge to give them as many experiences as possible.  She appreciated that they'd been able to do Darien for years, but they haven't been able to afford Disney since they had only four kids.  It made me grateful for what we've been able to do lately, and it definitely made the wait time go faster to chat with someone!

Next we did the bumper cars, which are also never on my list (sorry, whiplash isn't fun to me), but that was also Halloween-themed in the dark with smoke and colored lights, so we took the opportunity to do that one, too.  Carter's driving was really sketchy there as the wheel seemed to get turned extra far and he couldn't right it, so we were going into oncoming traffic--yikes!  We survived, and after that we knew we were getting short on time, but we took advantage of a short Pirate line to finally get on that one--probably my first time on that particular ride in over 20 years!  It was fun getting that airtime on the "up" end, but I was definitely ready for it to be over because the swinging was a little rough on my aching head.

We had also heard that the merry-go-round was going backward that night, and we were able to walk right on that, too.  It was odd but fun, but I definitely prefer that stuff going forward these days.  But it was something different and I was all about maximizing that for this trip because I never want to have to go to this event again if we can help it!  The lack of good rides was frustrating, the high unsupervised teen population was annoying, the ride loading times were extra long, and I'm just not a fan of stuff like that in the cold.  I'm glad we did it but summer is definitely preferable.

 

With our last 10 minutes, we hopped in line for the Predator.  Once you're in line, you ride, even past park close, so that was a good way to end it.  It was rougher than our last ride in the warmth and front car, but I'm glad we got in one more fun one.  Unfortunately, from the exit ramp you get a prime view of Ride of Steel, and that just disappointed Carter all over again.  I don't know if seeing it triggered him or he just then realized at that moment that the park was closed and there was no chance it was going to randomly reopen, but regardless he got upset all over again.  That left him in a terrible mood (again) for the walk out and the ride home.  

I tried to emphasize that we WILL make it happen, one way or another, but I know the eight-month wait is frustrating and I can't explain to him just yet how we will guarantee he'll get on, so I get his sadness.  He's now convinced everything will be closed next time we try too, but little does he know I will go daily next year if that's what it takes!  Soon, buddy...soon.

His mood was made even worse because we were going to try to get hot chocolate on the way home, and that ended up a disaster, too.  Tim Hortons looked open but we saw as we drove by that the drive-thru menus were off.  We got up to the Speedway near the Thruway, and as we tried to fill our cup, it was just water.  They were all out.  We then drove across the street to the Flying J store, and as we walked in an employee was working on their machine and confirmed they were out, too.  Seriously?  We were three-for-three on rides and now three-for-three on hot chocolate.  What crappy luck!  After that, I was so happy to get home and get us both in bed, at least once I took Tylenol and Mucinex (I was all congested again that night but woke up better, thankfully), and hopeful we'd have a better day on Sunday.  At least as I was putting Carter to bed, he said something like, "But at least we did have fun," so I was hopeful he'd get over it quickly, and he seems to have.  

Sunday was a bit of a slow start.  Jacob had early practice, which Craig got him to, but I had a really hard time getting moving.  I was exhausted.  I don't know if it was the busy day, the cold night, the ride abuse (which could have been mildly concussive), my lingering sinus infection, or all of the above, but I was beat!  I found out first thing in the morning when I was awake when the boys left that my mom had tested positive for COVID (and my dad was likely right behind, which was confirmed Monday morning), which made for a bummer of a start.  I really wanted to go to church since we know we'll miss it for a while now, but I forgot to set an alarm and when I woke up again just a little too late, I just couldn't do it.  Craig came back after dropping Jacob off, and we conked back out for a while.  Eventually Carter and I roused ourselves, had some breakfast, and got ready for the day, at which point Craig got up and headed out to pick up Jacob.  I started some laundry and planned to make lunch when the boys got home, but it turned out Jacob had a community service thing to do after practice, so Carter and I ate lunch by ourselves and then prepared to head out to get some pumpkins and a Halloween costume.  Luckily I checked our Halloween stash before we left and I found Jacob's old Scream costume from 5th grade, which Carter had expressed an interest in and it ended up fitting him just fine.  So that was a nice time and money saver!

 

There was a farm I heard about not far from us with a $5 max on pumpkins, so I figured that sounded like an opportunity to get more for our money.  Sure enough, we got some cute ones.  All five cost a total of $16, which could have been the cost for one big one or maybe a big and a small at many places around here.  It was just a cute little family farm and they had a lot of options, and it was a much lower key experience than a typical pumpkin patch, which was much needed.

It also happened that we passed by one of our favorite playgrounds on the way--the Parma Town Park with the two awesome playgrounds.  We did a quick stop there on the way home, but most of the kids were littler and didn't want to play tag with Carter (and I wasn't in much shape to be too active) so it was probably only a half hour stop.  Back at home I had to help Craig with the pool (of course the cover the pool store gave us to close it was three feet too small), make a trip to Wegmans, and watch the Bills game--thank goodness they won a close one!

 

Apparently the bad luck from the previous night followed me into Sunday, because at one point near the end of cooking our meatloaf dinner, I put away a muffin tin in the drawer under the oven and all of a sudden I noticed the oven light wasn't working, and neither was the clock.  It took me a lot of looking but I finally realized that a cookie sheet slid back behind the drawer and fit into the one millimeter of space where the oven plug had just a sliver of exposed prong thanks to it being a tight outlet.  Well, I realized both the prong and the cookie sheet had notches and burn marks on them, so they must have had a moment of connection that fried everything.  I have no idea if it's the cord, the stove, and/or the power box, so I probably need to figure that out first before I go ordering all new stuff.  I'm a little panicked about how to cook without a stove or oven for at least this week until I figure things out.  I suppose we were really lucky it didn't start a fire or something, but geez, what are the odds?  It was quite a bummer and burned me out for the rest of the night even more than I already was.  It wasn't the best way to end a generally fun weekend, but s**t happens, right?

So, onward to another week before we start traveling.  Carter starts Orchestra this week, so that will be interesting.  Jacob's five-week grades came out last week and were pretty darn good (even math), which was encouraging despite our struggles with getting him to do his work.  My sinus infection is still hanging in there, which is concerning, but it's definitely improved.  I've had some good days, but then I'll randomly be stuck blowing my nose every few minutes because a little bit gets stuck up there at a time.  At least I've been able to sleep better for a few nights now and when I do blow my nose it clears out for at least the moment.  I guess it gives me an excuse to call the ENT like my doctor wanted.  Sigh.  Craig had a few days off last week, which gave us some bonus kid-free time while I was stuck working at home, but he spent most of it gearing up for training camp in a couple weeks (if he had to work, at least it was at his own leisure in between movies and errands).  As a whole, we're still definitely not as functional as I'd like these days, but I think we're doing okay.  We'll see what a bunch of quality time in the van does over the coming weekends, but hopefully we have some good memories to make, and then we'll suddenly find ourselves in the thick of the march to Thanksgiving.  I have no idea how that's possible.  But then again, 10 years ago today we found out Carter was a boy, and that doesn't seem possible either.  I have some thoughts on that coming soon.  But time is just flying these days and I guess these past few weekends are proof I'm trying to get as much out of this time as I can.

Now THAT Was a Weekend, Part 2 - Full Family Fun

After an active and fun-filled day on Friday, we still had more to do--this time as a family.  We were headed to the arena here for a Syracuse University basketball event.  It was essentially like an open practice/exhibition type event, with both the men's and women's teams.  With our budding basketball star (fingers crossed), any sort of higher level basketball is always fun to take in.  We had only about 45 minutes to get home from our outdoor adventure, meet up with Craig and Jacob, change clothes, and head back out.  On the way, I made Craig slow down at a house around the corner because I wanted to take a picture of the hilarious Bills-themed Halloween decorations they had out.

All of those skeletons have on Bills shirts, there are beer cans everywhere, and the guy in the middle broke a table, in true Bills Mafia tailgating fashion.

The event was cool, and we had awesome floor seats.

We got a picture with the 2003 National Championship Trophy.  I still remember Craig and me watching it when we were engaged, during an ice storm, in a hotel room for the night since there was no power at our respective houses.

Carter even got to meet Otto!

It occurred to him after the fact that he actually sleeps on an Otto Pillow Pet every night, so maybe the moment would have felt even more momentous if he remembered it at the time!  But who knew Otto isn't much taller than him!

We got to see the men and women go through warmups, do dunk and three-point competitions, and run a couple scrimmages.

Even the legendary coach Jim Boeheim was there and seemed to be enjoying the show!

The dunk contest was a bit underwhelming--the guys had a hard time making their fancier second dunks!  Hope they're good shooters from the rest of the floor!  We encouraged Jacob to try to get into the fan part of the three-point event but he didn't want to.  They ended up picking adults (which I guess makes sense since not every kid or teenager can do threes), but he definitely would have done better than the one guy.  The other one was actually pretty respectable.

Watching the women was interesting because a couple are local and their team had a pretty big shakeup over the past year because the UB Women's coach left for Syracuse and a bunch of her players followed her there.  It should be fun to keep an eye out on their season after seeing them play.

We always keep an eye on the guys, and maybe this will be the year we finally make it to a game?  They had a lot of really tall guys (6'10" or 6'11"), but one of their best players is only 6'1", which probably gives Jacob some hope. 

Speaking of Jacob, I took a picture of him after, in hopes that six months from now (or really any time during high school, hopefully) he's playing on that same court for sectionals!

Not often we see a smile big enough to bring out the dimple these days...it was good to see.

On Saturday, Jacob had practice early and then it was off to Buffalo for my family's Oktoberfest.  Last year got skipped completely so it was nice to get back to it.  I made a German cucumber salad and then did a gluten-free apple crisp to be sure Jacob had a dessert.  They ended up being pretty easy and both seemed to be enjoyed by all.  We had a nice time catching up with family even though it was actually quite chilly--only in the low 50s and feeling only a tiny bit better when the sun would infrequently poke through.  My uncle started a fire in the fire pit and Carter spent most of the rest of the day priding himself on being a great stick breaker (and later, stick placer).  He's such a funny kid with what resonates with him, but at least it got him off the phone for a bit and talking to people.  It was also the first time we'd seen my parents in person in months--possibly since the beach reunion at the end of July, since we missed the reunion a couple weeks later due to illness and had a lot of weekend basketball practices and a couple other things that filled our weekends before Florida.  We stopped at their house on the way out of town and showed them the Disney pictures before getting back on the road.  I really miss summer's late sunsets this time of year when we're driving back home in the dark!

On Sunday we all slept in rather late.  I was still in no shape to go to church (sinus infection was still hanging in there and was worse later in the day on Saturday, despite the antibiotics, so I am now on to steroids, which seem to be helping), and with all the early weekend practices lately, both Craig and Jacob needed the rest.  And Carter always likes a good sleep-in these days--he's done 10:30 a couple times recently!  So, I figured we'd just let it go and sleep in.  We were already planning on doing Stokoe Farms anyway that afternoon, and there have been times we've skipped church anyway to beat the rush or the weather, so I figured if we were up earlier we'd just leave for there earlier.  In the end everyone was a bit pokey so we only got there around 12:30.  It was busy--we parked in a spot we've never been--but I think they have enough activities now that it spreads people out enough that it wasn't bad at all.  We could have done it next weekend but I was too worried the weather wouldn't cooperate, so we had to do it when we knew the weather was reasonable.

It occurred to me later that this was actually the 15th anniversary of our first trip to Stokoe.  Craig and I went there in October 2007 with free tickets we had from when Stokoe brought reindeer to the Rochester Rattlers Christmas in July game that summer.  I don't think they even have reindeer anymore, but I was completely enamored with the baby they brought to that game!  

Even as two adults with no kids, we had a blast on that first visit, and little did I know but I was most likely newly pregnant at the time!  We're pretty sure it happened the previous weekend--I had a negative pregnancy test at the doctor's office right before we left for a weekend trip to Hamilton, and when we had our first ultrasound and Jacob was 10 weeks, it dated right back to that trip!  So over these next couple days, Jacob will have officially existed for 15 years!  Yikes.

First hayride selfie!

Who knew I was pregnant here?  That girl had no idea what was about to go down over the next month!

First experience with feeding goats up high with the cans on the belt

I couldn't resist!

Back in present times, my new favorite feature was this cool chrome pumpkin.  It made the coolest photos with the blue sky and surrounding pumpkin patch!  It actually reminds me of a Rene Magritte painting - Google "Rene Magritte sky painting" and you'll get the idea.

As usual, we hopped on the hayride and did our traditional family selfie...which was nearly impossible with a bunch of funny face makers, but this one is good enough!

We did the pedal carts in sets of two, and Carter was excited to just be tall enough to pedal, although it was tough to keep up with me as we raced the big boys.  They had a tough time steering but I think our cart was newer and we flew by them when they ran into the tire border!

I got Carter to do one of the cheesy boards like I did on our first trip, and I think it actually turned out really cute!

The boys were huge fans of tetherball!  I stayed out of it because I didn't need a broken finger or a ball across the cheek, but they had a blast!

As usual, we made a couple stops at the ball throwing.  Even Carter made three straight basketball shots in a row!  Just in time since he'll be doing Upward basketball again this winter.

One new thing this year was paintball.  It replaced the pumpkin slingshots.  We paid for 125 paintballs and I was going last, and either the boys all miscounted badly or they shorted us because we ran out before I got to shoot!  But all the boys did well!

Next we did the bee line, our favorite activity.  We had a great race, but Carter won.  Pretty sure I traveled the farthest, though!  After that we walked down to the barn to check out the animals there.  We got to see a camel...

...and feed goats!  This one was really eager and quite selfish!  Eventually he was up on the bars sticking his head over the fence! 

This one wasn't quite as desperate, but was cute anyway!

Look, a kangaroo!

This was also new this year, and right up Carter's alley!  That him at the top on the left!  The bottom was actually harder to get up because the first two rungs of rope were really far apart.

Easier to see him down here!

We did a few runs on the slides--both racing and the tunnel slide.  Always a cheater in the bunch...

I took a detour to see the some birds, most notably this turkey, who was really into a tween kid wandering around the cage.  He kept following him and gobbling at him.  I just missed him displaying his tail.

Carter played some gaga ball (also new) while the big boys played corn hole and I checked out a cool new game that reminded me of something on Big Brother or Survivor - you had to use two ropes holding up a small platform that held a golf ball to raise the platform up a wall full of holes.  You pull the ropes carefully to lift and steer the platform around the holes and always keep the ball with some sliver of wall behind it.  There was definitely a learning curve but I got the hardest one on the second try!
 

Carter was a trooper and came over to the (apparently stinky) petting zoo area with me.

Aren't the alpacas cute?!

This cow had quite the hump and horns.  It reminded me of a small version of the cattle with the massive horns at Animal Kingdom.  

Is this horse stylin' or what?

As we were trying to see the new porcupine (no luck), we ran into Carter's buddy Ben and his dad!  Small world!  We let Carter do some panning for rocks (it's his favorite thing and it wasn't super expensive), and then Carter and I wandered over to the pumpkins for sale while the big boys checked out the store.  We couldn't resist a picture with the big chair!

They had some fun pumpkins, but for the price and how old some of the stems seemed, we passed.

That wrapped things up.  We caught the end of the Bills' blowout win on the radio and got Slurpees on the way home.  We hadn't eaten lunch so we got all four Slurpees plus some snacks for less than what two slushies or lemonades would have cost at the farm.  Had they been apple cider slushies I might have consented, but blue raspberry?  Nope.  I have lemons to make the same kind of lemonade at home, but still need to do that.  I decided I'd also rather get Wegmans apple cider donuts than the farm's.  Call me a bummer, but whatever.  It's an expensive day and I consented to plenty of other things!  I still need to make good on the donuts and go to another place for pumpkins, but hopefully next weekend.

Both boys had Monday off and I took a half day, but it ended up being a bit of a lazy, do things around the house day, which was probably needed.  Regardless, it felt good to do all the fall things most of the weekend and fit in as much fall as possible.  I worry that all these coming weeks of travel will leave the rest of fall feeling a bit un-fall-like, but I'm hoping we can squeeze in a little more fall-specific stuff this coming weekend and get our fill before the leaves all fall.  And hopefully we'll make lots of good other memories while we travel, even if fall isn't central to them.  I do like fall for all the reasons in these last two posts, but I just wish the weather wasn't giving us such a vivid preview of what's to come!  But until it does, I hope we can squeeze in as much fun as possible.