Three Day Weekend!

Josh and I had decided a while back to take a three-day weekend together in October to try to accomplish a handful of things. We both took off October 15-17 and had a great weekend.

On Friday morning, we got up early and headed down to Windom, Minnesota to visit my grandparents. It was Ridley's first trip down there and a long car ride for him, but he handled it wonderfully! He had a great time visiting his Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Reid. They have a cuckoo clock, which he immediately fell in love with. We also went for a walk to the local park and played on the playground there before having ice cream treats and heading home. We had a smooth drive home and made it back in time to go to Josh's parents' house to watch most of the playoff game before bringing Ridley home for bed.

The next morning we got up and headed out right away to bring Ridley back over to Josh's parents' to hang out with his grandma, grandpa and Auntie Stacey for the morning so Josh and I could go test drive a few cars. With Ridley getting bigger and his little sister due in a few months, it was getting to be time to look into upgrading from Josh's Saturn into something with a little more space. We'd decided to look at crossover SUVs and wanted to check out the Ford Edge and Explorer, Mazda CX-7 and a few others. We just wanted to see what was out there, but we didn't have any intention of buying anything.

Well, funny how things happen.... we bought the first vehicle we test drove at the first (and only) dealership we went to. They had a Volvo CX90 that was in our price range and had everything we were looking for - and more. The picture below is the same color and year as ours, but isn't ours specifically. We love it, and the additional space will be nice not only for the two kids, but also for Josh's work when he needs to bring supplies to and from the different Punch restaurants. It is so much easier to get Ridley in and out of - especially as my belly is rapidly growing! We are also both much more comfortable riding in it.

After buying the car, we spent the rest of the day celebrating birthdays! First we had a late birthday lunch with Jeff and Diane to celebrate both Josh and Jeff's birthdays, which are the 13th and 12th, respectively. We went to the Highland Punch Pizza (Josh's old store), and it was delicious and nice to see several of his former co-workers.

We had a brief break at home, then headed over to Josh's parents' house to celebrate his birthday with his parents, Stacey, Scott and some family friends. Josh's mom and sister made eggrolls and cream cheese wontons and they were delicious!

Sunday was a slightly calmer day. Josh and two of his friends have a semi-annual tradition of taking a day out of October to celebrate the fall with pumpkin pancakes, a trip to the apple orchard, a scary movie and haunted hayride. Ridley and Josh enjoyed a breakfast of pumpkin pancakes at his friend Jake's house (I stayed home as I abhor anything pumpkin flavored or scented), then they came and picked me up and we met up with everyone else at Pine Tree Apple Orchard.

We went through the corn maze... Ridley was insistent on being carried by me almost the entire time....

But he did get down to walk on his own for a little bit.

We also went into the pumpkin patch there...

Ridley enjoyed it much more than the corn maze.

We stocked up on apple rollovers, apple butter, apple cider and a strawberry rhubarb pie at their gift shop area.

After the orchard, Ridley and I headed home so Ridley could take a nap. He took a nice long nap, and we had a little downtime before Josh's friends came over to meet up for dinner. Josh made juicy Lucy's, which turned out great. After dinner, Josh and friends made a trip up to the haunted hayride, which wasn't too busy for the season yet, so he got home not too long after Ridley went to bed.

It was a very busy weekend, but good all around!