Autumn Beauty Drive 2011

This year's autumn beauty drive was shorter than the ones of our past.

We used to start them early in the a.m. We'd stop for doughnuts, drive through some country back roads, pop into tiny country stores and just meander through the day.

This year we have a baby.

So the drive had to be shortened due to nap time and general crankiness that ensues after being in a car seat for more than 40 minutes. But it doesn't really matter because that little guy is the reason we want to have traditions like this and really, he makes everything more fun.

We packed up, clicked Westley into place and we were off.

We decided to head out to Sharp Farms and get some pumpkins from Dave and Nancy. We had met them two years ago when we discovered their farm. We weren't able to go to the farm last year because I was struggling with being sick from pregnancy so we were excited to see how things had changed.

We pulled up and the place was hoppin'. We immediatley saw Dave and Nancy taking money and chatting with customers. They saw us and said, "Hey we know you!" They had remembered us! "You're the girl with the blog!"


I really couldn't believe that after two years they remembered who we were. But like I said two years ago, they are salt of the earth people. The kind of people that make you feel like family even though you've only met them once, so there you have it, they remembered us and it made us feel so very special.

We caught up on things. We had a baby! Here he is! His name is Westley! They told us that their kids were in college now and that the pumpkin crop was wonderful this year. We headed out to the field and every where we looked were perfect, orange, beautiful pumpkins. It was really amazing.

We stopped to get a photo of Westley as a sunflower. Then I literally tripped over a bale of hay laughing because of this photo:

It's fun placing your baby on things and taking photos of it.

Dave took a  family photo of us on the haystacks, we said our goodbyes, put our pumpkins in the backseat and headed home.

Usually on our Autumn Beauty Drive something magical happens. Like we stumble upon a small town carnival or we have a pumpkin field all to ourselves. This year as we left Sharp Farms to drive home I wondered if maybe we wouldn't have a magical moment because we didn't have all day to just discover things. But of course, true to form, God gave us some magic.

 As we drove home one by one hot air balloons slowly rose up from the skyline. I snapped photos and kept saying to Drew Jones, "there's another one!"and he would say, "no way!"

It was a great little trip with my little family. Our first Autumn Beauty Drive as 3, with many more to come.

What are some of your autumn traditions?