Its not reasonable to expect warm summer weather in the middle of October, but it sure is wonderful when you get it. This weekend we hosted our first family get together — Nicole’s immediately family, plus Nanny all hiked up, with turkey and other delicious food for Thanksgiving. Benjamin could not have been more excited.
We worked fairly hard leading up to their arrival, so Monday we decided to just relax. The kids let us sleep in almost until 8:00, and we decided to take them apple picking. This is what Benjamin thinks of apple picking:
But, we beat the crowd there, got a couple bags of apples, and a yummy jug of apple cider. The orchard was about 25 minutes from our house, and the road trip took us through some beautiful countryside and along a river lined with brilliant trees. We rolled the windows down, and breathed in the warm fall air.
When we got home, we decided we weren’t ready to be in-doors yet, so we packed a picnic lunch and strolled to a little park, where we ate left-over turkey sandwhiches and sipped hot apple cider from a thermos. When he’d finished most of his sandwhich, we left Benjamin down to run around and play.
Then we tried to take a few pictures. This is what Abigail thinks of taking a few pictures:
I’m teasing them both. They had their fits, as babies often do, but mostly they were great all day, and there are some good pictures in the side bar. The kids seemed to love the family time, and both napped fairly hard in the afternoon. While they did, Nic played some Viva Pinata, and I messed around with car stereos — with about 80% success.
In the evening we BBQed and ate dinner out on the deck while the sun set behind us. We sipped a glass of wine (spoils from the Thanksgiving dinner) while the kids worked happily on their desert. When they went to bed, almost without complaint, we sat ’round a poorly built fire that smoked more than it burned (it was the paper, I tell ya, it was damp) watched a little TV, then went to bed ourselves, smelling of outdoors, and apples and camp fire…
It felt good to be free.
I was in class today, trying to explain the difference between the egotistic manliness of Macbeth and the paternal manliness of Macduff and the best way I could describe it was how it felt to hold your own baby in your arms. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget that feeling. Thanks for reminding me how nice it felt to be a young parent.