I LOVE fall!

I always forget this until it comes again every year at this time - I LOVE FALL! I love the way the air smells, crisp and cold. I love the hussle and bussle, I love all the candy that lines the aisles of every store. I love bundling up in jackets and scarves, I love the way it feels when you step inside, red nosed from the cold. I love the colors - the bright blue sky next to the deep red and orange leaves on the changing trees. I really just love everything about fall! Now that I am teaching, I find myself loving it even more! I love the holidays that come with fall - Halloween, then Thanksgiving! At school, I love that everything I do can be Halloween themed - we can write spooky poems, we can find scary descriptive words, we can make spiders and ghosts to decorate the classroom. I am so excited for the many fun things we get to do in 2nd grade throughout the coming months!

Today was our 2nd grade field trip to the "Red Barn." The only, and I mean ONLY, things I knew about the Red Barn before today were that, #1 they sell good ice cream in the gift shop, and #2 we were going on a field trip there. So, at 9:30 this morning, tractor pulled wagons, lined with bales of hay as seats, pulled up to our school. One wagon per class - four in all. The kids were SO excited, all bundled up in layers and layers of warm clothes (which took A LOT of discussion and reminders to convince them that they will FREEZE if they don't wear at LEAST 3 layers). Even still, ALL my kids were saying, and I quote, "I'm the most freezing I've ever been!" haha. The tractors pulled us all the way (about 1 mile) to the Red Barn apple orchard where we learned all about apple trees and they let us each pick one apple of our own! :) They showed us how they pick cherries by shaking them with a machine. The kids were laughing and laughing watching that big tree shake like a leaf as all the cherries fell to the ground. Then, they drove us to the pumpkin patch where each teacher got to choose one pumpkin for the class. My class, and I gave in, chose the BIGGEST pumpkin - SO big, I couldn't even carry it - the apple orchard man had to carry it for me, which was very nice. The kids thought it was the best thing ever that we got the biggest pumpkin of all the classes. The entire rest of the day, I heard "Mrs. Webster, we have the biggest pumpkin in all of 2nd grade!" After the pumpkin patch, they drove us to the Red Barn gift shop where they gave everyone an apple cider doughnut with sprinkles. We took pictures, ate and sat in the sun to warm up. I can't speak for the kids (I think they LOVED IT), but I thought it was awesome! It was the perfect thing to do on a perfect fall day!

Today, I have to say, was a great day. It was a day that made me say, "Okay, I can do this," which is huge. HUGE. :-)

I wish I had pictures, but they are on someone's else's camera!

ONE more day until my family comes!!!!!!! SOOOO excited!!