Hello on Halloween eve from the other side of a jam-packed and very fun Hallweekend. I can’t believe we still have one more day to go with Halloween being tomorrow. We have been living our best fall lives over here!
Typically on the weekends that I have Finn I try to plan for one fun and special outing/event/experience. Well, this past weekend we enjoyed four days in a row of fall festivities. I think October is in the running for my favorite month of the year. 🙂
Here’s a recap of our adventures!
THURSDAY: HALL FAMILY FARM
(tank, shorts, shoes – my FAVE plain white leather shoes!, bag)
On Thursday afternoon I picked Finn up from school and we came home for a snack + reset before heading out to Hall Family Farm. It was our second year venturing out to their new Lancaster, South Carolina location and we love it here! We spent almost three hours enjoying the hay ride, corn maze, potato sack slides, kid’s zone and more. I prefer to plan our visit for a non-weekend day to avoid the crowds and it honestly felt like we had the whole huge farm to ourselves. There were just enough people to add a festive atmosphere but it wasn’t overwhelmingly crowded (I do not thrive in that environment).
Finn really wowed me with his ability to navigate the kid’s corn maze. Without any guidance from me he established an “anchor/home base” point of a big tree that was right at the start of the maze. He used that to orient himself as he moved through the maze. Our goal for next year is to do the large seven acre corn maze!
Was cracking up at the “after” photo of Finn as the farm was closing. He went from fresh and clean to sweaty and filthy – a sign of a lot of outdoor fun! Also, I went home with pickled okra and apple butter!
FRIDAY – GHOULY GALA AT DISCOVERY PLACE KIDS
The team at Discovery Place reached out to me last week and invited Finn and I to attend their Ghouly Gala at Discovery Place Kids in Huntersville. The Ghouly Gala features spooky Halloween-themed STEM science experiments, shows, games dance parties and more. We are HUGE fans of Discovery Place so of course the answer was yes. Finn opted to wear his Iron Man costume from last year. The event took place Friday evening from 4:30-7:30p.
Finn had a blast exploring all that Discovery Place Kids has to offer and also enjoyed the special activities and shows.
SATURDAY: FARMERS MARKET, LONG RUN + TRUNK OR TREAT
After our big night out, we slept in on Saturday morning. We made it over to the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market around 10:30a. We visited our favorite farmers first to stock up on fresh produce and then Finn wanted to wander through all the other buildings. He’s holding the leaves from a ginger plant. I’ve been buying a lot of fresh baby ginger the last month and the farmers at Crouching Hippo Farm sent us home with a big bunch of the leaves. I asked her what she likes to do with them and she gave me a few fun ideas – use them in tea, add them to a pot of rice for ginger flavor, cook salmon on top of a bed of the leaves, etc. This is something I LOVE about the farmers market – having conversations with the people who grow the food and getting new ideas and inspiration.
On the way home from the farmers market, we stopped to get some trunk or treat decorations and did a car wash in preparation for said trunk or treat. We came home and had lunch and then Finn took off to spend a few hours with his dad. (I’ve mentioned recently that this is something we are trying on the weekends Finn is with the other parent to break up the long time he’s away. Finn is SO loved but it’s a constant juggling act of his needs and I’m grateful we can all work through it in a positive way!)
(obsessed with these shorts, always love running in these shoes)
I used the time Finn was away to get a long run in. I missed my long run last weekend because I had a cold. While I felt okay to lift and walk, I ended up taking a week off of running. Not ideal when you’re two weeks out from a planned half marathon but I am also committed to exercising intuitively so I trusted my body. As I made my way back into running, I did three and four before tackling this nine miler. I set out telling myself I’d be happy with seven and then set a goal for eight and finished by pushing to nine.
Overall, I felt good on the run. Super slow to get started but once my body kicked in, I settled into a slow and steady pace that felt very manageable – and night and day difference between my first long run eight weeks ago.
While I felt okay during the run, I was pretty wiped out after. I am going to attribute that to getting over the cold. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about the half this coming Saturday but I’m also very excited and committed to getting it done.
I got myself showered, made a delicious recovery protein smoothie and then parked myself on the couch to watch the Georgia/Florida game. Finn got home and joined me and we had a major snuggle party until it was time to get costumed up for trunk or treat.
Finn chose Pokemon costumes this year. He chose Charizard so I went with Pikachu to compliment (I claim to know nothing about Pokemon but I support Finn’s love for it!)
The trunk or treat took place at our swim club and was even bigger and better than last year. Finn made his rounds abound the trunks and then liked helping me pass out candy. Once we ran out of candy, we stayed for socializing and bounce housing.
SUNDAY: LAKE NORMAN STATE PARK
I really, really, really wanted to take a day trip to the North Carolina mountains on Sunday to catch the last of peak leaf season. I tentatively planned to head to Grandfather Mountain and Linville Falls but it just wasn’t in the cards for us. After having so many activities throughout the weekend, I knew we needed to have a more relaxed pace to the day and stay closer to home. We lounged in bed until almost 9a and then hung around the house until noonish when we got dressed for our afternoon outing.
I decided we’d venture back up to Lake Norman State Park. We stopped in Davidson (which is about the halfway mark from Charlotte) to have lunch at milkbread. Finn loves to eat out at a restaurant and decided to bring his stuffies along. Please also note that he decided to dress them in shorts. I absolutely love that for almost five years of his life Finn could care less about stuffies and they are everything to him now.
We did the short version of the Lakeshore Trail at Lake Norman State Park. My sweet boy did 3.7 miles on his own two feet and begged me to do another when we got back to the car (it was time to head home, haha).
If you live in the Charlotte area, I cannot recommend a trip to Lake Norman State Park enough. It’s a hidden gem – tons of water access and very well-maintained trails.
While I am missing the Blue Ridge Mountains, we saw some really gorgeous color on Sunday at Lake Norman State Park and the trails were so uncrowded.
I wish I could say that we slept well on Sunday night after this busy weekend but my sleep was TERRIBLE! Finn slept like a rock but I tossed and turned all night. I ended up finding that my Monday morning yoga class at Charlotte Yoga had some unsettled energy and other teachers/students also didn’t sleep well Sunday. I also saw a fellow trainer friend on Instagram share similar sentiments about her and her clients’ sleep on Sunday. Was it delayed full moon energy? Halloween energy? IDK? My word for it was frantic.
BEDTIME for me to get rested up for Halloween!
QUESTIONS
What did your kids dress up as this year? Did you dress up?
Do you guys do Halloweekend events or mostly Halloween day?
Have you trunk or treated?
Let’s talk about that Sunday sleep. Anyone else!?
