Chair lifts Fall Colors 2012

We made the annual trek down the street to enjoy the chairlifts and the fall colors. It wasn't as nice as it was HERE, but the colors were spectacular, much better than they were HERE. 

The girls really enjoy this outing, which generally is the first weekend of October. So once the weather starts to get chilly, and the leaves start to change, we start fielding the "when can we ride the chairs up the hill?" questions. 

And today, was finally that day. 

 It was windy today, gusts of 20-30mph and temps in the mid 40's. We bundled up warm: winter jackets, hats, mittens and even a blanket for up at the top around the campfire. Brrrrr!
I'm not real certain it was smart to try to take a picture riding the lifts with cold fingers, amazingly I didn't drop the camera :) 

 I love this owl. She comes out to visit each year and I look forward to seeing her. Owls are so pretty and really quite an interesting sight. I'll never forget the first time Regan saw her head twist nearly 360 degrees. Her eyeballs about fell out of her head; it pretty much sums up how i feel about them.

 But the main reason I love love love this experience, is the colors. I love to soak in the beauty from the highest spot in the county. And today the colors were breath taking. From every side of the hill, we saw shades of yellow, red and orange. Beautiful

The girls played a few games, learned about various animal skins (heads attached...totally grosses us all out), including a squirrel. Regan had to tell the poor volunteer about our recent dead squirrel in our yard courtesy of the neighbors dog. 

But aren't they cute!

 Some friends met up with us, and they are ALL BOY! So we ventured into the woods on a nature hunt. Sidney was scared out of her mind, thinking a bear was going to get us. Poor girl. 

 And then the girls rolled and rolled and rolled to their hearts content. I'm pretty sure one of them rolled somewhere near or in geese poop, but I didn't want to spoil their fun so I just let them go. I know. GROSS! 

Because frankly, I was too busy soaking in more colors. 

We got to play a little game I discovered called "Where's Sidney?"

And ended the evening with s'mores around the campfire at the top of the hill. Another year of fall colors are falling quickly to the ground. I'm glad we were able to see and enjoy their beauty, despite knowing that snow is just around the corner. 

Chutes and ladders

Today, I learned about a place nearby(unofficially) named Chutes and Ladders. I found pictures online, showed them to Ryan and his response was "Holy Schnikies!" You might think the same....

The girls had such a wonderful time getting lost in the sea of double nets dangling high above ground leading to super fun slides only to go back for some more.

And not to be outdone, Sidney followed Regan's lead by going down this slide while I took this picture of Ryan at the bottom, just to show how long this "chute" was! Thankfully it was so humid she didn't gain much speed and I quickly caught up to her.

Eventually, after many times following Sidney into the "ladders" (because there was no way I was leaving a 21 mo old fend for herself that high off the ground), I was exhausted and opted to take her down to the lake for a photo op.

Because she's just so darn adorable.

We promised the girls we'd be going back, and Regan made us promise

it wouldn't be too many sleeps before we go back again!