Finishing Up Fall... and the FFFF

For as much as we love to/have to hibernate in the winter time, we try really hard to soak up all of the sunlight and fresh air that we can in the month of October.  And all of the beautiful colors!

Emma and Noah were determined to make a leaf pile worth jumping in, and they did a pretty great job!

 We headed back out to Saylorville Lake to see if the water had gone down enough over the summer to get onto the beach...

and it had! 

 Laney had a great time getting soggy up to her armpits.

Leah did not have a great time holding her.

It was windy and cloudy... a pretty typical day in Iowa, but still perfect for skipping rocks (a skill Adam has inherited from Jason). 

Another night we all loaded the bikes up into both cars and headed north for one more epic bike ride over the High Trestle Trail bridge.

 Noah was in charge of snuggling the pup, once she stopped pulling me on my bike up and down the dirt path that we started out on. I could not stop laughing at my tiny little sled dog.

And we timed it just right for a beautiful sunset 

and a spectacular light display.

 And we were just in time to watch a marriage proposal (from quite a distance)- she said yes, Emma said how romantic, and Leah said how embarrassing!  Typical all around. 

  Laney's first time on the bridge!  She's an official Iowan now!

And thanks to some kind older bikers, we had a few extra lights to help guide us home.  Iowa is really big on biking, and it was fun to get in one last ride this fall! 

And of course, no fall is complete without our annual Final Family Fall Fling!

We've officially lost count of how many 'F's are in the Fantastic Final Family Fall Fun Fling, but one thing is for sure- this year's big night arrived waaaay earlier than I wanted it to.  Once the temps are officially stuck in the 30s and 40s we put it on the calendar, and this year that meant Friday, October 25th.

And it was awesome.  It was such a beautiful walk in the woods, even though Noah kept telling me that this was not where we do the fling every year.  He forgot there are two stages to the event- first the hike, then the fire.

And this year was the puppy edition!

  The leaves on the trees at our home still can't compare with the piles we rake up while the fire is being built.

It was getting dark quickly- not much time for pictures of this part!

 And we were SO glad that Daddy could join us.  He is always super super busy in October, and we have to do a lot of things without him.  But not the FFF!

And it was a good thing too, because we really needed that fire!  It was chilly and dark and the perfect setting for telling stories and talking about all of the things that made this year great (so far!) and the reasons that we are so glad to be a family.   

And Daddy told us lots of stories about his mission- a hot topic of conversation in our family because Cousin Ethan just got his mission call to Spokane Washington.  Daddy told us about his companions and why he wanted to serve a mission and some of the things that he learned while he was serving in Bolivia for two years.

And then it got too cold and too dark and too late to stay out any longer, so we packed everything up and searched everywhere for Emma's missing hat, which we realized had been left over at the hiking area of the park.  So we drove back over while Daddy headed back to work and Noah fell fast asleep and we took a minute to look up at the millions of stars that we can't see from our backyard... and we called it a perfect way to say good-bye to fall for good.