Autumn Fun

I know I've said this before, but I love autumn.

Tree in our backyard

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. It was one of those days where the temperature was on the fence - neither "warm" nor "cold." If I had worn a long sleeve shirt or a fleece, then I would have been uncomfortably warm. Yet, wearing short sleeves, there was just enough chill in the air that the occasional breeze would send a ripple of goosebumps across the skin on my arms.

The trees are still gorgeous. The last time I wrote about enjoying the fall colors, about half the trees were still green, and half were brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red. Now, about half the trees are bare, and the other half have taken their turn to amaze us with their beauty.

I decided we had to take advantage of such a beautiful day while we had the opportunity. I took the boys to the Flash Mob event, which was fun and good to meet a lot of geocaching friends there, but short. Then we stopped to find two traditional ammo-can-hidden-in-the-woods type geocaches.

Found It! (Can you see it in there?)

Bliss.

The boys got first dibs on the toys in the geocache.

The boys showing off the toys they got.

When we got home from geocaching, I decided it was time to rake the leaves. I know this is a chore many people, including me in the past, have dreaded. My wife says she doesn't like autumn for exactly this reason. Then again, it's been three years since I was home during an autumn to rake leaves. My awesome wife took care of all that and more while I was in the training pipeline and off on deployment.

So, I guess there was a sort of novelty in it for me since it's been so long. I found myself smiling while raking and sucking up the leaves this afternoon. I took a sort of perverse pleasure in it.

Believe it or not, there IS grass under all those leaves!

The boys enjoyed the leaves in their own way.

I hope you all are enjoying your weekend, too!