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My oldest sits on a big pumpkin at the orchard

^{Posted by: WhitneyMWS}

I love the fall.  I've lived in both the West coast and overseas in my life, and I literally yearned for the East Coast fall when I lived in those places:  the changing colors on the trees, the smell of burning leaves, apple cider and pumpkins. 

Of course, here in Philadelphia we've been having an Indian Summer most of the fall.  It had been in the upper-80s for over a week now, but this morning we woke up to rain and 50 degree weather.  I never thought I'd actually rejoice but yeah!  I'm excited it's finally fall and all it entails for my kids. 

Last weekend, we took the boys out to an orchard.  We live in Chester County outside of Philadelphia, an area that is growing by the minute but you can still manage to find some fields, rolling hills and farms if you look.  Sadly, the orchard that my husband and I used to visit when we were dating has now been replaced with a parking lot and ugly corporate building.  (In the words of Joni Mitchell, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot...)  We now visit a place called Highland Orchards, which I hope will not suffer the same fate someday.

The boys loved it.  In fact, my almost-four-old remembers everything from last year and has been asking for it for months.  We took a hay ride around and we picked raspberries and apples. We drove past the pumpkin patch promising my 4 year old a return soon since last year we picked pumpkins too early and they went bad before Halloween. 

My husband went apple picking with his family every season as he grew up.  I love the traditions that the fall is bringing to my family -- Sunday football, carving pumpkins, apple cider, apple and pumpkin picking.  Mulled wine for Mom & Dad. 

Next up:  December and the hay ride we take each year to cut down our Christmas tree.

What fall traditions does your family have?