A Day at the Farm

 I'm a big believer in family traditions.  As a kid, my parents took Nick and I to the same pumpkin patch every year.  Whenever I think of Halloween, I remember running up and down rows of pumpkins, jumping in the moon bounce and sneaking extra free samples of hot apple cider.  One of the things I love about being a parent myself is creating our own family traditions.  For us, one of those is going to be taking our family on an annual pumpkin patch trip.  So with that in mind, we went to Cox Farms Fall Festival today.  Cox Farms is the largest and most popular pumpkin patch in the DC metro area and had about 90 acres of fall fun.  It totally lived up to all the hype.   Layla was too little for most of the activities, but she loved looking around and  checking everything out.  She was too busy to look at the camera for most of my pictures.  We had a great family fall day!

Layla Cow

I'll take this one

I love the Pumpkin Patch!

Layla goes to College

I didn't think I would be writing that title for another 18 years! Mike and I took Layla to Harrisonburg this weekend for JMU's homecoming with some of our good friends.  As we drove out of a rainy, dreary Ashburn  I told Mike "don't worry, it's always sunny at Madison." And I was right (like always-ha!) As we drove down 81 the clouds parted and the sun shined down on the Burg.   Layla must have felt that JMU is that happiest place on earth because she was such a happy, laughing baby the entire day.  I think she knew this is where her parents met!  We had a long day of tailgating, the football game, dinner with friends and sleeping in a hotel and she didn't make a single fuss all day.  We think it was the happiest day of her life.  Even as she was laying in her pack n play in the hotel at night she was laughing to herself as she was falling asleep.  We had such a great time and decided that taking an annual family trip to Madison for a football game will go on our list of Melcher Family Traditions.

Diva Baby playing at the tailgate

Happy Baby=Happy Momma

We couldn't bring Cashy, so we found a fill in Bully for a family pic

With Brittany and Bryan at the game.

On a side note, JMU totally renovated their football stadium.  It is awesome, probably the nicest stadium (pro or college) that I have been to.