Over the past several weeks, I've gotten a touch tired of seeing our Halloween pumpkins glowing on my blog each time I scroll down to look at updates on other peeps' blogs. Time to push those pictures down, make one final post about fall and then welcome the snow, winter, Christmas season, etc...
During the 1st full weekend of November and one day later in the month, we worked on cleaning up the billions of leaves in our yard. I'm sure the number isn't really that high but take 5 maple trees, several aspens, and a number of Japanese maple trees (and neighbors' leaves that blow into the yard) and you're sure to have one serious pile of leaves to jump in. Claire was actually a huge help, probably filling a good 2+ bags with leaves on her own. All I had to do was rake or sweep them in to piles and she'd dump them in the trash by the armful. Hudson, on the other hand, wasn't so keen on the task and took some convincing (aka threatening) to get involved...and only on the last day when we were close to being done with the whole thing. I should have roped him in sooner. Oh well - he got to see his 3-year-old sister get a bigger allowance than him. Maybe next time he'll remember that! Over the course of the 3 days that we spent working in the yard, we managed to fill over 20 huge black trash bags. Thankfully our town happily comes and picks them up if you call. Saved us the headache of hauling the bags or gradually getting rid of them with the trash each week!
Mid-month, I took Claire to the Living Planet Aquarium. I had heard mixed reviews - some people love it, others think it's so-so, and I've talked to a couple of people who didn't care for it at all. I figured that we had to give it a shot and decide for ourselves. There are a few great exhibits (the octopus and petting the rays were my favorites) but all in all, I'm in the so-so category myself. I'm sorry but it just doesn't compare to places like the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Steinhart Aquarium at the Academy of Sciences in California. I've been spoiled in that regard my whole life so it was hard for me to be thrilled with Living Planet. Claire, however, was happy and enjoyed seeing everything and I'm sure we'll go again sometime. Hudson still doesn't know that we went without him and I'm going to have to make up for it...
Lastly, we have the 1st real snow of the season. We finished up the aforementioned raking and yard work on the 18th and the next evening, the snow started falling. We had a few inches in a very short time and as it continued to come down, we all bundled up and went out to play. The kids had a blast "sledding" down the little hill in our backyard and Max and the kids made a snowman. We even went for a walk around the neighborhood and we adults couldn't help but giggle at the people who thought that they were going to make it up one of the hills in our neighborhood in their sedans and minivans (plows didn't make it to our street for a while). 
Between that storm and a couple since, we've already had a couple feet of snow up here this year. Certainly makes it feel like winter is on it's way. Or at least it did until we got up into the 40's and low 50's over the past few days. Our yard is almost completely free of snow. The remnants of our snowman are one of the last signs of the white stuff out there...I'm thinking that my daffodils and other bulbs might pop up one of these days. Oh well. I know another storm will bring more snow soon enough. At least all the Christmas decorations are up, there are lights up on peoples' houses, and holiday music is playing on the radio!
More festive/seasonally appropriate posts to follow soon...
2 comments:
That is a whole lot of leaves! Next year, can I get an allowance if I come help rake? I thought the same thing about the aquarium. Your snowman looks great!
So are you ever going to update your blog, or what???? I need entertainment!!
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