Wow! Halfway through October already! This week Scott was on his Mid Term Fall Break. This was WMU's first ever Fall Break. Looks like some people liked it and others did not. Scott says the professors did not like it. Guess it throws off the class schedules. The break officially started on Weds afternoon, Oct 17 and continued until Sunday, Oct 21. Most of the professors decided to cancel the Weds morning classes. Scott only had one class scheduled in the morning, and that was cancelled. There is only one non stop flight to Baltimore from Grand Rapids which is not until 5pm, so Scott had a lot of down time. He got his homework done before leaving for the airport late in the afternoon.
This was also Scott's first time traveling by himself by plane. He had to locate the airport long term parking lot and drive up by himself to Grand Rapids, about an hour drive. He then managed to find the lot and take the shuttle to the airport on his own, but then attempted to check in for his Southwest flight at the Delta desk. Good thing the Grand Rapids airport is small. They redirected him to the correct desk and he had a great 1.5 hr flight home to BWI, arriving at 6:30pm.
Turns out, Tom was also flying into BWI after traveling to Scotland the week before. Tom had to fly through New York, and was not sure if he was going to get there at the same time Scott arrived since there was high wind advisory in NY. However, he had a window of opportunity to take off, and the two arrived at the airport about the same time. So Tom was able to bring Scott home. I was not available since I was attending a free class at the Sr Center on "Mindfulness"-how to avoid extra stress in your life. Allison was available as back up as needed for a ride home.
But the schedule turned out well. Scott was very excited to be home for a long weekend, but we were not hanging around very long! On Thursday, Scott visited with his high school friend during the day. They went out to lunch, played video games and Matt helped Scott decorate the outdoors for Halloween. That evening, when Allison arrived home after work, we packed her car and Allison, Scott and myself headed out to Williamsburg, VA and HallowScream at Busch Gardens! Tom decided to stay home since he had been traveling overseas for two weeks and was feeling a bit wiped out! Also, we decided he should probably stay home and puppy sit, both Cookie and our friend's dog, Ripley. We had volunteered to watch Ripley for an extended weekend while our friends traveled out west to Washington state for a brief vacation to celebrate their anniversary.
So the three of us headed out around 7pm. When traffic is light, you can arrive in Williamsburg within 3 hours time. Usually we get stuck in the DC traffic, but this night I opted to take the new EZPass lane. The only risk with this is that they change the fees based on time and traffic flow, and it can run quite high. Driving down the prices were not so ridiculous, and in taking the EZ pass route, we arrived in a timely 3 hrs with an hour to spare and visit Busch Gardens that night. They added hours and days of the event, so we took advantage of 1 more hour of spooky haunted house mazes before closing that night. The only downfall was that it was so cold! Especially for Allison. We threw on lots of winter coats, hats and mittens and headed in. Fortunately, the more we walked around the park, the warmer we got and were able to visit 2 Haunted Mazes. And the crowds were down as most people were leaving when we were arriving.
We then headed to our hotel, which Tom had a hard time finding since most of the area was sold out. So we stayed about 25 mins away from the park, which turned out fine. The next morning we had time to go to breakfast, visit Starbucks for a pumpkin spice coffee and the last pumpkin scone(much to the sadness of the customer behind us!) and fill up at the gas station before heading into the park when it opened at noon. The weather was beautiful and a bit warmer. We had a great time walking around the park, shopping and catching the Halloween shows and eating lunch before the Haunted Mazes opened at 6pm. We were first in line at the most popular Haunted Maze-a blend of the last 20 years of HallowScream events. So fun! The kids and I were pleasantly scared and finished up the event around 8pm. We picked up some pumpkin cheesecake to go, and stopped into Express Panda for chinese take out food at the hotel. We had an incredible dinner and dessert to go while watching scary movies before heading to bed.
On Saturday morning we headed back home after breakfast in the hotel. We decided to take advantage of getting home earlier by stopping into the Larriland farm to pick apples! I usually take Scott, and my mom, out to the farm to pick apples in the fall and visit the produce barn. It had been rainy and the field was a bit wet, muddy and chilly, so I was not planning on taking my mom. But Allison had not been back to the apple farm since heading to school 5 years ago! She was excited to visit, and the place was packed on the weekends with lots of families and kids. They have a small haunted barn and maze for children, food trucks, hay rides and even showcased a fencing class that day. We stopped for lunch from the food trucks before heading to the fields. Apple picking season runs from September to November. Some of my favorite apples are ready in October, so the timing was great. We picked two large bags of Enterprise and Gala apples-for snacking and pies. I really wanted to try my hand at picking fresh broccoli too. The farm staff give you a knife to cut sprouts off the tops of the plants. There were lots of customers in line with beautiful looking broccoli, in their bags, but we decided we just did not have the time to spare. Scott wanted to get home to spend some time working on a research paper with Tom's input. So when we returned home, I got busy with laundry(still a good deal for college students!), and I made a very tasty apple crisp for dinner. I think we overdid the activities and food items for Scott's homecoming weekend-I also bought him a pecan pie and pumpkin pie. We had more desserts than days to eat it! And Scott also has been missing grilling out, so we let him cook up some thick pork chops for dinner. Yum! Allison and Scott finished off their evening with video games. A wonderful visit!
On Sunday, Scott had an early flight back to Grand Rapids so Tom and I dropped him off at the airport. I then spent the afternoon doing yardwork and housework since we had been gone for several
Scott reports a terrific flight home, easy drive back to the dorm and was settling in for the evening working on his research paper. We actually packed Allison's extra school printer in a large suitcase for Scott since he discovered he had limited, free access to printers in the dorm. He was able to set up the printer and got it running that day. Thankfully it survived the flight!
And Tom enjoyed his weekend home alone with the dogs, although they were a bit of a handful for him! He did manage to get started on a house project-patching a few walls. Looks like our house has been settling a bit with all the rain. We had a few cracks in the kitchen and upstairs bedroom on the walls where we bumped out the house during our renovations many years ago.
All in all, it was a wonderful weekend! Sending out a Happy Birthday wish to Matt Draper for his Oct 18th celebration!
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