it's october

A pumpkin patch outing in 92 degree weather is just wrong.

Is anyone else annoyed that summer is sticking around when we should be wearing cozy sweaters and drinking hot cider while enjoying fall weather activities? It's just not right...

I have so been wanting to do some fun fall family stuff... I pictured the last couple of weekends as great times to go visit a farm, a pumpkin patch, spend some nice cool fall days picnicing at a park or on walks or at the zoo. Also known as things we weren't really able to enjoy most of the summer when it was too hot. So can we enjoy these things now? Not unless we enjoy sweating our backsides off in sticky 92 degree weather. I think we had maybe 2 days in September when the temperature stayed below 80. Most it's been up around 90 or higher ever since we got here in June. Now, I loooove me some good hot summer weather. I am one who is always sad to see the summer gone. But seriously... this is October??!

And by the way... our pool and other outdoor water park activities? They've been closed since Labor Day. Yeah, that's smart for the midwest.

Yesterday we were trying to think of something fun to do with the kids. Anything we wanted to do that was outside we vetoed simply because we are sick of having to be out in the heat. All the water parks and other "cool" things we thought of doing, were all closed for the season. Ryan didn't want to go all the way into St Louis, so we decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese's closer by in St. Charles. Now, Chuck E. Cheese wouldn't usually be our first choice (or even our 10th or 20th choice), but we realized our kids had never been there and after seriously a whole hour of trying to figure out what we could do, we were desperate to get out of the house. So off we went, to find the only Chuck E. Cheese's around here, with the kids being loud, obnoxious, and/or fighting in the car for the whole drive. I questioned why we were even trying to do something nice for them. But they were driving us just as nuts cooped up in the house.
We finally pulled into the parking lot noticing it was quite full. And noticing next, that people were lined up out the door to get in. Um, no thanks.
So now what? Next on our list (or just on our way back toward home) was to just let the kids play at the mall and eat at the food court. Yeah, we're exciting.
Well, we get to the mall and walk around a bit and then head over to the indoor play area. Only to discover it no longer exists! They had cleared it out, built new escalators, and left a sign saying they were relocating the Playtown to the other side of the mall. Coming soon. Which means Not Now. Are you joking me? I just want my kids to be able to play somewhere besides out in the sweltering heat in OCTOBER, and someone somewhere was really trying to keep us from having a good time.
We still ate at the mall... the kids were quite tired of us saying we were taking them someplace fun and then NOT. So we had a nice dinner of McDonalds, Subway and Happy Panda.
Do we know how to spend quality family time on a Saturday or what?

Ugh. I really wasn't going to complain about this hot weather. It makes me mad, because I don't want to hate the summer weather. I love the summertime. But enough is enough. Summertime is over. It'd be nice if it would at least cool down at night... is 70 degrees too much to ask for?
I'd like to sleep with blankets on at night and maybe at least open a window or two once in awhile.
I'd like to wear jeans and maybe long sleeves every now and again.
I miss my slippers.

I'm ready for fall.