It's Fall!

Well, maybe not for a few more days but I'm too excited to wait much longer!  It's time for picking apples and taking wagon rides... getting jugs of locally made apple cider... picking pumpkins and picking out costumes.  I've got catalogs for craft kits that I want to make and outdoor decorations and indoor decorations!  The children are excited, too, thankfully.

I was wondering why I'm so excited this year?  I've got more plans than I can keep straight but why this year?  Then I went back through the years in my mind and realized something surprising.  We haven't celebrated this season in five years. 

2010:  We spent all of September in the hospital with a critically ill newborn and I had emergency surgery complicated by pneumonia.  I spent October staring out the window, shell-shocked.

2009:  We did go apple picking but then I got pregnant with Walter and spent the rest of the season feeling crummy.

2008:  I was pregnant and lost the baby, so that season was a bust.

2007:  I was pregnant (do you see a theme?) and spent all fall in bed with morning sickness.  We didn't get out much.

2006:  I was counting this as a good year but now that I think about it, at the time we called it an annus horribilus, so forget this year, too.

That means that not since 2005 have we had a nice fun autumn.  No wonder I'm excited!