Well my fall break ended 2 weeks ago, so this may be a little late, but better late than never! It always seems that Fall Break is one of the most needed breaks of the year for me. Starting off a school year is long and exhausting (procedures, beginning of the year testing, more procedures, more testing…you get the idea), then throw in working full days PLUS parent-teacher conferences before and after school during the last couple of weeks, I was beyond mentally and physically exhausted and ready for a 2 week break with my family. During Ryan’s third year of med school, they get one “break” rotation…where they aren’t actually doing a clinical, but are usually still expected to do something. The nice thing was that Ryan got to choose when he got to have this break, and what he got to do with it. So we purposefully planned it so that he would have this rotation while I was on fall break. He chose to do some emergency medicine research, which mainly required him to enter data into his computer…which he could do from home. So for the first time in a LONG time, Ryan and I both had somewhat of a break at the same time. As much as I would have loved to go to Florida with my family, we just didn’t know what Ryan’s schedule would be early enough, but it still turned out to be such a nice, relaxing 2 weeks. Kinsie was perfectly content staying at home playing with her toys and playing outside (it was a BEAUTIFUL two weeks). We also took little day trips to places like the Children’s Museum, pumpkin patches, and even downtown Danville! I’ll share some pics from each of our little adventures!
We were finally able to take Kinsie to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum for the first time. She loved it! Her favorite exhibit was the dinosaur exhibit. Ever since then, she’s kind of been obsessed with dinosaurs. She has wanted dinosaur toys, dinosaur fake tattoos, and even made Ryan dress as a dinosaur for Halloween! Ryan’s inner child is pretty happy about this dinosaur phase that Kinsie is going through!
Like I said, we had some beautiful 60-70 degree weather during my break. You already know how much Kinsie likes to be outside, and now she is starting to embrace the beauty of fall. She loves the colorful falling leaves, and has even starting collecting them, thanks to some inspiration from her cousins. Ryan gets really into any hobby that Kinsie currently has, so he bought her a leaf-collecting kit. Between collecting leaves, sticks, and finding colonies of bugs, she was one happy girl to be outside!
Downtown Danville is always festive no matter the season, and I drive past it every day on my way to work, so I had seen that they had a scarecrow display around the square. Kinsie really likes scarecrows (and anything else dealing with fall), so I thought she’d like to walk around and see it. Plus, this is the closest place to us that has crosswalk signs, with which Kinsie is still obsessed, so we knew she would be happy either way! She LOVED the scarecrows! Different local businesses made different scarecrows to display around the square, and some of them were really creative! Kinsie’s faves were the Doc McStuffins and Olaf scarecrow. After we walked around, we ate lunch at Mayberry Cafe (their salad bar is one of my favorite things in life). It was a nice little family day trip!
We went to two different apple orchards/pumpkin patches over break. We first went to Anderson Orchard just the three of us. We picked out pumpkins, ate biscuits and apple butter, drank apple cider slushies, and played on haystacks. Kinsie probably could have stayed there all night. We love Anderson Orchard because it’s cheap and not as crowded, but still offers lots of fall fun. Once my family came back from Florida, we all went to Beasley’s Orchard. We took a hay ride, bought apple snacks, and let the kids run around the pumpkin patch. Kinsie became a pumpkin-picking pro, and even later helped carve her pumpkin (post to come soon).
I was very grateful to have 2 weeks off with not only Kinsie, but with my husband too. It was SO refreshing, especially after a month’s rotation of him being in Muncie again. We got to have so much quality family time during those 2 weeks, which is all I ever ask for. We didn’t go anywhere super special or do anything extravagant, but we were together, which made it perfect!
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