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On September 26, I ran my first 5K race.  I know it’s old news by now, but bear with me:)

Three friends from Bootcamp and I met up on a beautiful September morning to run a 5K together.  Julie and Natalie have been running 5Ks for a while, but this was my first race since high school.  I was nervous!  After going to bootcamp for a couple weeks, I’ve gotten pretty good at pushing my limits, and I was hoping to run a good race.  Turns out, it was great!  Such a fun morning…I can see myself getting a little addicted to doing runs like these!

Here’s me and my girls after the race:

I don’t know these girls, but I loved their costumes!  I think I’m going to have to look for some tutus like this for the 5 mile Madison Mud Run I’m planning for Halloween!

And here are my race results.  I can’t remember what my speed was when I ran cross country in high school, but I think my pace in this race is at least as fast as it was then.  Granted, I was the slowest one on the team, but even so, it’s nice to know that I can crank it up:)

After this race, I went out and bought myself some cold-weather running clothes to help motivate myself to keep running this fall and next spring.  Inertia is a powerful thing.  The inertia of the sofa has a keen draw, but I’d like to keep the pattern of once- or twice- daily exercise in my routine!

This summer, our back yard was taken over by squash.  Orange, globe-like gourds.  Andrew brought home a pie pumpkin seedling from preschool last fall.  Its growth (as of late August) is shown below.

This behemoth, on the other hand, is a jack-o-lantern variety that I brought home from the farmer’s market in June.  At the same time, I brought home a watermelon seedling and a zucchini seedling.  We got nothing from the watermelon.  The zucchini produced one respectable fruit.  But the Pumpkin?  the Pumpkin???

It took over the yard in three directions.  While we blithely ignored it, the monster plant produced nine good-sized pumpkins.

Last week, Bryan harvested most of them.  The first two were already decorating our front stoop.

We’ve given some away and still have several to share.

Now our yard is no longer a pumpkin patch.  Andrew cannot wait until it’s time to carve these bad boys.  Our pie pumpkins are still producing, and I’m hoping to get a few more oranged up before the end of the season!  Viva la pumpkin!

I really, really, really thought I wrote a post about our apple orchard outings.  But I guess that must have been on Facebook, because I see nothing that looks like an apple post here on my blog.

Well, friends, weather or not I am losing my mind, the truth remains that it is high apple season here in Wisconsin.  Our favorite orchard is Door Creek Orchard, just to the east of Madison.  We’ve been to the orchard several times, and while I’ve avoided making tempting baked goods from their bounty, we’ve had lots of apple sauce.  And if the saying holds true, we shouldn’t be seeing a doctor for quite some time.

Here are some pictures from a couple of our outings.

The mosquitoes have been incredibly bad this late summer, and unfortunately, they were still really thick at the orchard.  We would venture in to pick and then run (sometimes screaming) into the safety of the apple barn.

Here’s Jessica and Eli with some cider to take home.

Reading apple literature to the young ones.

One book: four kids

After purchasing our apples and cider, we trooped across the highway to the sheep pens.

These sheep are a perennial favorite of the kids.  It’s a lot of fun to feed them grass!

Then the farmer came over and let the kids throw rotten apples to the sheep.  What fun!!

Hello, you happy Black Welsh Mountain Sheep!

There’s our crew!

Back to the orchard!

Mmmm, does that cider taste gooooood!

Sylv gives it a thumb’s up.

* * * *

Going back in time, here’s some pics of our trip to the orchard a week earlier.

Bryan and his kids

Andrew contemplates his apple variety taste comparison.  Or is he just two-fisting it?

My goodness, these kids can be hams.  Where did Sylvie learn how to pose like that??

Goofy grapes one and two.

Sylvie gets a boost from Dad.

A happy day at the orchard.

Apple picking season is about half way through, but there’s a good month to go.  So if you haven’t gone to your local orchard yet, I recommend it!

What beautiful fall weather we’ve had these last few weeks!  This weekend, Bryan is canoeing on the Kickapoo River with some friends.  It’s awfully chilly out tonight, and I’m really hoping that he’s staying warm.  For me at home, my laptop and cat are keeping me nice and toasty.

The kids and I had a nice day today.  We bummed around the house all morning (nothing of any value was accomplished), and then we went downtown and had lunch with Terry.  He just returned home from a month-long vacation to Kentucky.  He drove something like 6,000 miles while he was gone, covering every stretch of road in the fine state…or very nearly close:)

After gorging ourselves at Flavor of India on Mifflin Street (probably our favorite place to eat!), the kids and I drove over to Bubba and Lisa’s for a little visit.  Lisa played with Sylvie, Andrew played with Michael’s iPad, Michael mowed the lawn, and I took a nap.  It was a nice break:)  After a while, we all drove over to Middleton to check out a corn maze. I haven’t wandered through a corn maze in many, many years, and it was a lot of fun!  The weather was a bit chilly, and my dear, hot-blooded girl who was wearing a skirt, her cowgirl boots, a Halloween shirt and (adamantly) no jacket, was pretty chilly.  Before beginning the maze, we had fun in the craft tent cutting and pasting and running around and around (the kids, that is).  I painted Andrew and Sylvia’s faces, and they had a lot of fun!  Photos to follow.

Here are the kids diligently cutting and pasting…

Fall is here!  The milkweeds are sending off their dancing seeds.

Happy, face-painted kids.  They sure do love each other.

Here we are trying to answer some Halloween-related trivia.  When he got an answer right, Andrew would leap about, proclaiming, “I’m a genius!”

There’s my little Sylv.  She’s a delight, that girl!

Which way now??

It was Andrew’s first corn maze.  I think he had a great time!

The proceeds from this corn maze go to the Keep Wisconsin Warm/Cool Fund.  It’s located on the far west side in the Old Sauk Trails Park.  I recommend it for an active fall outing!