a new season

My favorite seasons are as follows: Summer, Fall, Spring, then Winter. Maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't born and raised by the beach, but in my mind you really can't beat summer. Bright sun, hot sand, pools and beaches. Riding bikes on the boardwalk, NO-AD Sunscreen and long days.
Fall is a close second. Pulling out my jeans makes me happier than it should. I get so excited for that first crisp fall day.

To me, fall means fire pits, Pumpkin Spice lattes, and camping at Big Meadows. Harvest beers are cracked open as the cheers of football games are in the background.

Up until this year I have struggled with the transition from summer to fall. While I get so excited about the great things about fall, I crave more summer. I have the best time wearing jeans one day, but when I wake up the next morning I'm so sad because I can't put my bathing suit on and go to the beach. I have to wait another 8 (if I'm lucky!) months! In the grand scheme of things it may seem like a small thing, but it's something I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. Until now.

It's funny how your life changes with kids. Every single aspect of your life. Because this year, fall is more exciting. For my family, it means less mosquito bites. It means pulling out Kate's old clothes to see what fits Summer. It means daily decision changes on what we will be for Halloween this year. It means trips to the pumpkin patch and apple orchards. And it means the sun goes down earlier. Have I ever been excited about that? NEVER! But I am right now! When it's dark outside, it's bedtime in the Fine house. And at this stage in our lives, bedtime is awesome.


Bedtime means adult conversations,finally finishing LOST on Netflix (we are losers, I know..), and cracking open that sammy octoberfest while sitting outside in front of our fire pit (and let's be honest...discussing conspiracy theories about LOST-again, losers...we know.).

I will still mourn summer. This year the girls learned to love the ocean, so trips to the beach meant less running around making sure they didn't eat sand or rub it in their eyes.
It instead meant building drip castles and jumping over waves. It meant seeing the sunrise on the boardwalk as I took Kate for a run when she woke up at 5:30am and couldn't get back to sleep (which I will, in some sort of odd way, miss).

It was the summer that Kate graduated from a float, to water wings to swimming on her own,
and that Summer starting walking! But it will come again. And we will be ready for it. Tutu bathing suits and all.