Falling For Fall ~ Our Family's Favorite Fall Festivities

Fall is my absolute favorite season of the year. Fortunately, Eric feels the same way and the kids catch our excitement every year. So needless to say, we pack our fall months with a flurry of fun activities!

There are so many traditions and favorite activities that we have that it's hard to narrow it down to just a few. Instead, here's our fall to-do/wish list. I'm sure we'll get to cross most of these things off of our list, but you never can tell.

1. A trip to our favorite apple orchard and cider mill. We'll pick apples and pumpkins, eat hot apple cider donuts and drink hot apple cider. We'll bring home at least a dozen donuts and a gallon of apple cider. This is our very favorite fall tradition!
2. Applesauce making day. We started this tradition last year and the kids have talked about it ever since. They've already assigned themselves jobs. We'll all work together in the kitchen assembly-line style washing apples, peeling them, dicing them and placing them in pots filled with water for boiling. I plan to freeze at least 20 cups of applesauce and make a dozen batches of apple leather. I'm sure we'll also make some apple desserts and a few batches of cinnamon apples for the freezer.
3. A trip to our local state park for a hay ride and the last visit of the year at the petting farm.
4. One last picnic, probably on the banks of the Huron River.
5. A day trip to Frankenmuth, Michigan to walk around stores, pick out some Christmas ornaments and eat a fabulous Bavarian chicken dinner.
6. A few years ago Eric and Isabelle went through a corn maze with some friends. They had a blast and now that our other kids are old enough, we're hoping to all tackle one as a family this year.
7. In the past, I've taken the kids on a few fall weeks where we enjoy the leaves and crisp air. I definitely hope we'll be able to do that a few times this year.
   
8. Color drive. We all love watching the leaves change colors. I'm hoping we can combine a color drive with our trip to Frankenmuth.
   
9. Disney World! Our family trips (with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, and my nieces and nephew) to Disney World are always a fall occurence. We're going the first week of November this year. I love Disney at fall time. They usually still have a few Halloween/fall decorations out when we first get there and by the time we leave, the Christmas decorations are going up. We also get to experience the awesome Food & Wine Festival at Epcot, which is one of my favorites.

That pretty much sums up our favorite ways to have fall fun. I'm sure I'm leaving tons of little things out though.

How about you? What are your favorite fall activities? I'd love to hear in comments, and if you want to blog about it, don't forget to link up at Daily Dwelling for the second stop on the Fall Festival tour.