(Said to the tune of “All The Small Things” by blink-182.)

In the past few years, I’ve done individual Fall Fun posts, but for this year, it’s just one collective post, mostly because Josh and I spaced out all of our fall activities during October.

Apple + Pumpkin Picking

Of course, we had to start out our activities with apple and pumpkin picking! There’s an orchard in town where we went two years ago that we decided to visit again. I think we picked around 10–12 apples; we didn’t need too many but I wanted enough so I could make an apple crisp the next day. Then I spent too long looking at pumpkins to figure out which one I wanted.

After that, we headed to another local orchard/bakery/small farm/ice cream place that neither of us had been to before. We saw some goats, had some apple cider slushies, and left with a bag of apple cider doughnuts.

Josh and I painted the little pumpkins we got from the first orchard. I borrowed painting supplies from my mom and set up at the dining room table. I’m sure you can tell who painted which pumpkin… Josh painted a second face on the back of the orange pumpkin but it’s terrifying and I won’t subject anyone else to that.

Talcott Mountain

Our annual “walking in the woods” trip! Or I guess it’s actually called hiking. Anyway, Josh and I went to Talcott Mountain last year and really liked the trail. The state park was pretty busy when we got there on a Saturday afternoon—it was definitely peak foliage so everyone else had the same idea as us. The picture above is from one of the lookouts.

Spooky Night

We dedicated one Sunday night to having a Spooky Night, which included making pizzas in the shapes of a pumpkin and ghost, having festive cookies (chocolate chip cookies with Pillsbury pumpkin cookies on top), and apple cider margaritas. We watched Beetlejuice; I had put together a list of Halloween movies but most of them were either PG or PG-13 as I can’t watch super scary movies (I guess watching 17 seasons of Criminal Minds means nothing).

This past Sunday, we had a Spooky Night Lite, meaning we made apple cider margaritas again, had some Halloween candy, and watched Haunted Mansion.

Tree House in Woodstock, CT

This was totally Josh’s idea! He and I have been to two of the Tree House locations (Charlton and Deerfield) but we haven’t been to the new one in Connecticut. We thought it would be perfect as a fall activity. The hour drive out there was incredibly scenic, and the Tree House property was so pretty.

They have a limited draft list but offer hard cider that they make with what they grow on the farm there. I had both of the ciders they were offering that day: one with cabernet sauvignon grapes and blackberries, and another with house grown red raspberries. Both were really good; the blackberry one was my favorite. Josh got two beers: Haze and Whisper, which was their Oktoberfest style.

Mike’s Maze Beer Tasting

This was our third year in a row doing the beer tasting at Mike’s Maze! Like last year, my friend Alex joined us as our favorite third wheel. Unlike last year, it didn’t rain at all; the weather was perfect for the Friday night event.

There were six breweries set up throughout the maze along with 10 trivia questions. The maze theme this year was the circus. (There’s a large main maze on the land and also a smaller one that’s used for the beer maze.) A lot of the beer samples I got were fall-ish or pumpkin, which I think is very fitting for the season.

We thought we did really well on the trivia questions, but when we checked our answers after, we only got four out of 10 correct. And, as always, toward the end of the event, we run into drunk people who cause harmless chaos and befriend us.

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Overall, I’m very happy with all of the fun fall activities we did this month. Yes, I know technically fall lasts until the middle of December, but October in New England usually has the perfect weather for outdoor things. Plus you can’t beat the foliage.