Fall fun

Usually I'm the one all excited about doing holiday things. But this time, Brad suggested we spend last weekend getting out and about.

Saturday's first stop was the French Prairie Gardens pumpkin patch in St. Paul.

We got there nice and early and checked out all the free attractions, including the corn maze. It was kinda lame, but also kinda fun. I was a bit scared that we might not make it out, but I kept my claustrophobia in check, and we survived.

Then we paid $3 each to see the pig races. Totally worth it!

From our front-row seats, we watched the actual farmer do his schtick, first giving impressive stats about his 500-acre farm and then hamming it up with the pigs. (See what I did there?!?)

There were three heats with pigs and a heat with ducks.

The ducks were really slow:

Farmer John had to hop onto the track to help them along:

This little girl next to us was SOOOO excited!!

Then the reserves raced. The white ones were much faster:

So fun! 

Then we had to sample the food offerings, Brad opting for a hand-dipped corn dog and me "settling" for an apple cider doughnut. (No veggie options) We split some fresh apple cider - yum! We also took home some apples and corn.

Next up was a bike trip to the West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta in Tualatin.

The weather was beautiful, and it was fun to see people who had no idea what they were doing paddling around the lake in giant gourds. We will always remember Kelsey who never gave up, even though she probably set the record for the slowest paddle! :)

But the coolest thing was running into cousin Amy and her kiddos, Andrew and Ryan! RANDOM!

ACTUALLY... what's really random is that we ran into this same cousin family two years ago at the same lake during a farmer's market. Freakin' me out!

Thanks for hanging out with us, guys!!

We topped off the sunny fall Saturday with a bike ride to dinner with family. YAY! :)