Owloween, A Corn Maze and Sports!

And just like that, another weekend has come and gone! We kicked off our weekend on Friday evening with a double date night with our friends Lauren and Tony. We all went out for dinner and drinks before walking the short distance to Escape 901 in Davidson to try out had at an escape room! Ryan and I have done a couple of escape rooms in the past but this was one of the best. It was challenging yet fun and the theme of the room had a local tie-in to the area that we thought was really creative. We had a blast… and so did the boys!

Childcare ended up being a mega-hit for them on Friday night because I entered a raffle as part of a fundraiser at the boys’ old preschool and won a parents’ night out. About 20 kids (kids of the other raffle winners) gathered at the preschool to make pizza, play on the playground and create some fun Halloween-themed art with a few of the teachers who volunteered to run the evening. It was such a treat for the boys to be reunited with some of their favorite teachers and it had me feeling all the more grateful for the very best preschool experience. We hit the jackpot with our preschool and miss it so much!

Saturday

Overnight rain on Friday brought cooler weekend temperatures and we bundled up for the first time this season for some fall fun on Saturday. The boys didn’t have any sports games on the agenda until 6 p.m. (a rarity!), so we wanted to take full advantage of a clearer schedule. Up first: OWLoween!

We made our way to the Carolina Raptor Center for their annual Halloween-inspired event and enjoyed walking along the Raptor Trail, visiting some feathered friends and collecting a little candy.

We’ve been members of the Raptor Center for years and always love visiting, even if it’s just for a walk along the trail under the shady trees.

We initially planned to head home after OWLoween, but on our drive to the Raptor Center we saw a sign for a local corn maze that caught out eye. We visited the corn maze at Rural Hill over a decade ago (pre-kids!) so we were overdue for a visit! While it’s changed a bit over the course of 12 years, it still has the small local charm we remembered from our last visit.

The boys wasted no time diving straight into the bounce house and we all enjoyed throwing toy axes, playing multiple rounds of corn hole and digging into the BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and hot dogs we ordered for lunch. Then it was time for the corn maze!

It was a fun one that included various stations filled with American history trivia we answered on our corn maze map that resulted in a word scramble to figure out a key word. We loved the way this made the maze feel a little unique and also enjoyed guessing the answers to the trivia questions before we arrived at the answer stations. (Who knew my obsession with the Hamilton musical would come in handy for American history trivia!?)

Eventually we headed home to let Comet out and the boys played backyard soccer and football with Ryan before digging up all of the carrots from our summer garden.

It was quite the haul!!

I used a handful of the carrots in a big batch of chicken soup and have a few ideas for how to use the rest: Carrot soup, morning glory muffins, carrot and apple slaw and butternut squash beef stew. Send any more carrot recipes my way if you have them please!

We also managed to sneak in a little downtime and watched about 30 minutes of college football on the couch before it was time to rally again and head out to Chase’s flag football game.

After rough start to the season, they picked up a win on Saturday night! Chase even had his first interception which was very exciting!!

Sunday

I unintentionally didn’t snap many pictures on Sunday so I don’t have much to show for our day but it was a fairly basic Sunday filled mostly with soccer games for the big kids, lots of outside time and a few hours of indoor household to-dos.

My big task at hand for the day was going through the boys’ closets and transitioning their clothes from summer to fall. It’s a huge blessing to have three boys for many reasons and all of the hand-me-downs are certainly one of them. Once Chase outgrows his stuff it’s pretty much ready for Ryder and then about a year after Ryder outgrows his stuff, it’s ready for Rhett. We did the big winter shift and transitioned pants and sweatshirts into the closet of the kid they will currently fit and set aside some things to pass along to my nephews and some to donate in the process, too. It feels good to have that done!

As for the week ahead, it should be a relatively normal one with a few little extras sprinkled in the mix including a school field trip, picking up two new foster kittens, a kindergarten play and — the big one — braces for Ryder! I’m hoping to check in with you guys again on Wednesday, but until then, I hope you all have a wonderful week! Thanks so much for making my blog a part of  your day!