Fall in Virginia

Another beautiful fall weekend here in Northern Virginia! Yesterday the boys and I met up with the Gastons and spent the day at Cox Farms, a local pumpkin patch. Well, it is called a pumpkin patch but they don't really have a patch. It is more like a huge playground. There are giant slides, hay piles to climb on, mazes, rope swings, animals, and a hay ride. The kids had a blast! While I wasn't too interested in the activities, I enjoyed the company of friends, watching the boys have so much fun, and onset of fall. The leaves are turning colors, the day was warm but a nice breeze cooled just enough to make it comfortable.
Today, we headed to a local park for some more outdoor fun. I brought the jogger for Gabe and the bike for Eli. This was Eli's first trail ride. Now that he is riding without training wheels, he can ride so many more places. The plan was for me to jog and Eli to ride through some trails. He was hauling, I was huffing, and Gabe was yelling "faster mom, faster". We had so much fun riding/running through the trails, playing on the playgrounds, and going on and adventure hike around the lake. The lake was nasty. Let's call it a super sized swamp. And the "trail" around the lake was hardly a trail. We were all walking, the Ranger warned us that we couldn't take the jogger or bike, and a number of times we didn't know where the trail was. In the end, we ended up 3/4 of the way around the swamp, the parking lot was in sight, but the trail dead-ended into a disgusting bog. I don't know what a bog is but it sounds like it would be the grassy, muddy, frog infested, muck that I deamed impassable. OK, maybe it was a marsh. At any rate, Eli encouraged us to keep looking for a way to pass, but after 20 minutes it was no longer fun and adventurous, it was gross and itchy, and we retraced our steps and made it back to the car.
As if that wasn't exciting enough, we ended our day listening to a live Jazz band while stacking on tasty treats. The Army Jazz band was playing down at the marina, so the boys and I made our plates and sat up on our deck listening to the music.
I'm hoping the weather will be fabulous next weekend too! I'm already searching for the next great activity. The apple orchards are calling, and I'm trying to convince the boys that Luray Caverns would be fun. Stay tuned.