If you are looking for a fun thing to do, try going to different restaurants starting with the letter A going all the way to Z. It's a fun thing to do for a date night or with a group of friends. We like to find locally owned restaurants to try. 

​1 Go pumpkin picking- walk through a pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkin. Then take it home to carve it or paint it. If you carve them don’t forget to save the seeds so you can roast them.

2 Have a bonfire. Fall is the perfect time to sit around a fire. Roast some hot dogs over the fire for dinner and smores for dessert. As a special treat when we have kids over, we get the magical flames packets to change the campfire different colors.

3 Rake leaves and jump in them. We used to do this with the kids and now the dogs love to do it!
4 Take a walk in the park. Grab a sweater and head out to look at all the leaves changing, acorns falling, and animals getting ready for winter. You might see a chipmunk with his cheeks filled!

5 Go on a hay ride. When our kids were younger, my dad used to turn the trailer of the tractor into a hayride. They loved it!

6 Go apple picking and make all kinds of apple treats. We love going to pick tons of apples. Then we come home and make all our favorite apple treats, from apple pie to apple dumplings.

7 Go to the farmers markets. Fall is when all the squash are ready. We love to eat spaghetti squash, butternut squash, zucchini, and pattypan squash!
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8 Take fall family photos. Fall is a great time to take family photos. The colors are beautiful and you can take some fun ones in the pumpkin patches or in the leaves. 

One of our favorite things to do in the fall is taking a walk in the park. A great way to get the kids to do this with you is to have them do a scavenger hunt. It makes taking a walk fun and it gives them exercise and fresh air!   

​Click below to download my free printable fall scavenger hunt and have fun walking in the park!

​One of my favorite things to do in the fall is apple picking. There is just something about eating an apple fresh off the tree that says it’s fall to me.
Here are my 3 favorite things to do in the orchard:

1. I love to take fall photos in the orchard. My favorite ones are the photos of the kids actually picking the apples or showing off the huge bag of apples they just picked. We’ve even got great shots of the dogs munching on apples and of course, there are the ever popular selfie shots.
2. Another fun idea is to do an apple taste testing. So many of the local orchards have all different kinds of apples that you can buy one of each and have a taste testing. The funny thing is that our favorites change year to year.
3. Although my favorite thing is loading the giant bags of apples in the car to take home to start baking! Every year we try a new apple recipe to add to all the old favorites. We’ve made apple pies, apple dumplings, apple crisps, apple cobbler, apple sauce, and caramel apples. And I love them all! 

When my kids were little, I wanted them to try new food. So every Saturday, when we would walk to the farmers market, we would pick a new food to try. It was fun to look for different things to eat rather than always staying with the stuff we knew we liked. We found some really good foods that we still eat today like sunflower shoots, cheese curds, poblano peppers, ground cherries, moon grapes, and patty pan squash. We also found some that we didn’t like, but that was part of the fun.

We also like to do this when we go out to eat. It is fun to get something on the menu that you wouldn’t normally eat. You might surprise yourself on the different foods that you like. Try going to a Chinese, Mexican, or Indian restaurant and ordering several dishes for the table to share. This is a great way to try new food that you wouldn’t order on your own.
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Another fun thing to do is buy different ingredients on vacation and take them home to cook with. It is a great reminder of your trip. We’ve tried different jams and jellies, fruits, popcorn, mustards, and different sauces. Great souvenir idea without adding more stuff to your house! 

One of our favorite things to do is spend time at the local zoos. One thing I used to love to do with the kids is a scavenger hunt! This scavenger hunt is made for the Cleveland Zoo but hopefully most zoos have all these animals. Have fun!

To print this free scavenger hunt download file below.

​Everyone associates candy and flowers with Valentine’s Day but I like to make people feel special in a different way. This started for me because when my daughter was sick she couldn’t have candy so I had to get creative and now it’s my favorite thing to do!

All you do is cut out 14 Hearts. They can be out of fancy paper, plain paper, colored paper or you can buy hearts already cut out. You can decorate them or leave them plain. They can be different colors or all the same. See where I’m going with this… get as creative as you want.

Next write a saying on each heart. I like to write something I love about the person or a special memory that I enjoyed doing with them on each heart. Other ideas can be to write inspirational quotes, things you want to do together, include photos of special memories or draw pictures on the hearts.

​You can give the hearts all at once or do one a day as a count down to Valentine’s Day!

Peace, Love and Little Donuts has two great options for your Valentine’s Day gift giving. If you haven’t tried their donuts yet, you are in for a treat. They have so many different flavors to choose from and they make them up fresh. No stale donuts here! Some of the flavors include; Apple Pie, Cinnamon Roll, Raspberry Lemonade, Strawberry Shortcake, Salted Pretzel, and Oreo Cheesecake. My favorite is the Shaka Pecan which has maple frosting with pecans and Carmel drizzle. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

​For Valentine’s Day they have donut bouquets! I’m always looking for different, fun gift ideas and this is different, fun and yummy! Just imagine the surprise on your Valentine’s face when they look into the box to find donuts! Pick 15 of your favorite flavors and make sure you preorder if you want to get one of these beautiful bouquets for your special someone.

The other option they have are donut valentine cards. These are cute little valentines that your valentine can trade in for a free donut! These are perfect for the classroom parties, especially with everything going on this year! While these are perfect for kids, they can be used for anyone; I mean, who wouldn’t love a free donut! Send them to friends to let them know you are thinking about them, give them out as employee appreciation, or pay it forward by giving them to a stranger as an act of kindness. 

​A big part of wellness for me is learning new things and getting out of your comfort zone. Have you ever tried EAL? What is EAL? I didn’t understand what it was until I actually did it. EAL stands for Equine Assisted Learning.

What I got out of it was understanding life lessons thru working with horses. This was both educational and fun at the same time.

We started off in a classroom-like setting, learning about how we are similar and different to horses. Then we got to groom and work with the ponies. It was fun to learn how to read what the pony was trying to tell you non-verbally.

My favorite part was going to the pasture to do the obstacle course. One of the activities we did was getting your pony to stand on a glove. My daughter got hers to do it right away, but it took me forever to get mine to listen to me! This was my biggest take away from the day for me. My pony wasn’t listening to me because I was looking back at him instead of looking forward. I learned that to lead a horse you need to look the direction you want to go, which also translates into life. Always look forward at things to come instead of looking back with regrets.

Other activities we did were getting the pony to go backwards, walking them around cones, getting them to stop moving. and learning how to change their harness. Although, I think the funniest thing of the night was when my pony just laid down and started rolling on the ground! Everyone was laughing but it turns out that ponies do that when they are really relaxed around you.

Doing EAL was a great experience for the whole family. We all learned a lot and had fun doing it. It was also amazing to me how you forget about everything else going on in your life while you are doing this. I was definitely a great stress-relieving activity!  
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If you are looking for a different activity. give EAL a try. Karen has lots of fun and different programs to fit everyone’s interests. Give her a call at 330/507-5172.