Falling into fall ...

When people talk about the virtues of the Pacific Northwest, the fact that Oregon and Washington really have all four seasons often comes up. We don't roast to death in the summer and we don't freeze to death in the winter. Spring is a pleasant yet rainy season of daffodils, and everyone just loooooves fall.

Well, except me.

At least in the past. I am now a reformed fall hater, but until last year, I never had much use for the gradually colder, gradually rainier, gradually darker portion of the year leading up to the wonder that is the holiday season. I know it's kind of ironic that I would dislike fall so much but love cold, dark winter, but I'm the kind of person that starts playing Christmas music in October. I love everything about the season, and that, somehow cancels out the dreariness that is January and February.

But fall ... it's always been a nonentity for me, tolerable only because of college football and Starbucks' caramel-apple cider.

And then I became a mom.

People always say that your perceptions of things change once you have children. Things you used to do -- like speed, and I mean really speed -- suddenly seem like a very.bad.idea. And things that once seemed unfathomable, like standing in line for eight years in a hot, packed department store to see Santa, become the norm, as if you've been doing them all your life.

Last year, I kicked off the fall with a trip to hot, muggy Florida. Not exactly the kind of occasion where you pull out the sweaters and order a pumpkin-spice latte. And when I left Seattle, it was still nice out -- warm enough, in fact, that I wore flip-flops the day before my departure. But when I returned, fall had arrived in full force. The leaves were changing (and falling all over my lawn, which is something I still hate about the season) and the air was crisp.

We decided to take advantage of it. To create some family traditions with our little bear. To embrace fall with a new perspective.

And that started at Spooner Farms in Sumner.

For having lived here my whole life, I had never been to a real pumpkin patch. If we even got pumpkins, we usually picked one up outside Albertsons or QFC. Perfectly respectable, but now, so pathetic -- especially now that I have realized how truly lucky we are up here in the Northwest to have access to real pumpkin patches.

Our trip wasn't far and our visit wasn't long, but it was my favorite fall activity of last year. (And considering the Cougars' abysmal performance, there isn't even a close second.) We loaded up the car with baby gear and my mom, and headed out to Sumner to wander through the mud in search of the perfect pumpkin, stopping only for pictures and freshly roasted corn on the cob.

It was during this trip that I shot one of my favorite Collin photos of all time -- the one at the beginning of this post. I absolutely love it.

And, as early as this summer, seeing that photo on our calendar for October got me excited about Spooner Farms again.

So this Sunday, we headed out to Sumner again, comfy shoes on and Starbucks in hand. We thought we had learned our lesson about the mud, but last year, it wasn't raining while we were there, and this presented a whole new challenge. So did Collin being mobile, because once he saw wide open (muddy) spaces he was ready to run, run, run.

We didn't want him going face-first into a puddle, especially not in his carefully chosen outfit that I started pieceing together back in August. But we did let him down long enough to take some wonderful photos. It's amazing the difference between 2009 and 2010. Still happy, still adorable, but a totally new bear.

And it was wonderful to get to experience the pumpkin patch through his eyes. The sights, the smells, the textures, the mud ... Collin picked out his own little pumpkin (and threw several on the ground) and even got to see a live turkey (while I stayed a safe distance away from the scary!bird in line to pay).

That alone is enough to make me a fan of fall.

Just as long as Chris rakes the leaves, that is.