A Fall Visit From Lola

When Lola found out that Jack does yoga in school,
they did some poses together.

I've been under a lot of stress lately and unfortunatley when Jack and I were going to visit Boston last week, that stress manifested itself in my back and it "went out". I landed in bed, incapacitated in pain, in the same clothes and hyped up on muscle relaxants for nearly 3 days. Tom's cousin, Kerrie, thankfully drove from Sacramento to stay with me and helped me back on my feet, emotionally and physically.



Someone's tired but it's not Jack

 In the meantime, Mom immediately booked a flight to relieve Kerrie and help take care of Jack and me. My back became stronger over the week and Mom was able to help take care of me, Jack, and a million other things that I wouldn't have been able to get to myself for either lack of physical strength due to my back, having Jack underfoot, or just plain procrastination. We waded through Dad's voluminous paperwork which was taking up a box and a suitcase in the corner of my bedroom and I've been avoiding for months, stocked up at Costco so I don't need toilet paper or paper towels for another several weeks, brought boxes to the recycler and clothes to Goodwill, etc. In the end, these turned out to be silver linings in my cancelled trip to Boston.

By the end of the week, my back was feeling better and we drove to Sacramento to visit with Tom's cousins and stayed overnight. We had dinner with cousins Kathy and Barry and visited with Kerrie and Amber. We drove to Apple Hill on Friday morning for some Fall activities. Apple Hill is about an hour's drive from Sacramento towards Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Foothills. Rustic and full of 50 or so orchards, the area has grown to include a winery, micro-brewery, and Christmas tree farms.

It was a perfectly crisp Fall day yesterday and slightly muddy from a few days of rain. Jack went through his first Hay Maze, and had his face and hand painted with glittery spiders and a spider web. We fed the goats, sheep, and cows and managed to lose a plastic glow-bracelet in the chicken coop resulting in a paniced beckon to the groundskeeper to remove it before the chickens started pecking at it. Jack picked pumpkins from a pumpkin patch and we came home with a box of Empire apples (for Stella, an apple a day!), cider, pumpkins, and a pie.

CLICK HERE for more pictures of Mom's visit and our trip to Apple Hill.