Family Fall Fun Day

Steve & I decided it was a day for family fun. We knew that Saturday would be cooler & Sunday more lovely - so we picked Sunday (also, I still had that stupid garage sale going on on Saturday)...initially we wanted to drive up the North Shore to drink in the beautiful colors. But we ended up opting for a shorter drive. Out 'west' to the Munger Trail & the Ely's Peak area of Duluth. It was so lovely.

However, it wasn't that *fun* of a day. We are cursed with trying to get out of the house these days. It seems to take for EVER. There's the cleaning up after breakfast, the dressing of the monkey-children. There's packing lunches, snacks, milk, water. There's the OH MY GOD YOU GAVE ME THE WRONG SOCKS tantrums to deal with. There's hooking up the bike rack and loading on the bikes & trailer. It takes all dang morning. But finally we left. Late. I wanted to leave at 10, we left at 1. So be it.

So while driving out to the Munger Trail, both kids fell asleep. Awesome. Nothing like trying to wrangle sleepy monkeys from their car seats & into the bike trailer. So we drove for a bit. Toured through Morgan Park, out to Gary, up and around here & there wherever we could go just to give them a little bit of a nap. Finally we headed up the end of Skyline. By that time August was awake & Dahlia was almost awake. We stopped along the ski trail there & decided to get out. Of course Dahlia immediately had to go potty (yay! We threw in the potty chair for just such this instance - go us!). And then she was hungry. And quite frankly so was I. We hiked a bit & set out our picnic. It was so beautiful. Brilliant blue skies, lovely leaves of yellow, oranges & reds. The picnic was fun. And since we were on a ski trail, August could run around and explore & we didn't have to worry about him running off a cliff or onto a street. Bliss! We even saw horses! A group on a trail ride rode past & that was a big hit.

After that we went on to the trailhead of the Munger (off Beck's Road). Loaded the kids into the trailer (August loves that...sarcasm implied) and took off. We went down the trail first and it was so nice. The trail was busy but not too bad and we were going down hill - just how I like it! But then the skirmishes started. August has been pretty darn ornery lately. All the time. So in that enclosed space where Dahlia is constantly "helping" him, he gets REALLY crabby. Sheesh. It made the bike ride a little stressful. Because then he started screaming. Screaming like he was that 4 month old with terrible reflux. He was so worked up. And giving crackers, milk, treats - whatever - didn't help. So, after only a short bike ride we headed back to the car.

Initially I wanted to end our Family Fun Day with a trip to Portland Malt Shoppe. But by the end of all this running around, that was out of the question. Luckily the kids survived a bit longer so I could run in the grocery store and buy some milk & ice cream. Whew! To top off our Fun Day activities I had absolutely TERRIBLE allergies. All day long. I think I sneezed about 1000 times. My eyes were so puffy & itchy. My nose so runny & read. My skin around my nose in pain from all the blowing & kleenex use. It wasn't that fun after all. Oh well, at least we spent our day outside and that part was very fabulous indeed.