Ode to Fall on an 80 degree day

Warm weather has hit the Bay Area like it does every October. Yet, as we enter Fall we crave the inevitable Fall weather not expected until Wednesday. This weekend we overlooked the incredible poolside weather and instead sought out some rites of Fall.

Yesterday we took the boys to the pumpkin patch Rodini Farms, north of Santa Cruz near the town of Davenport, Calif. After years of going to popular "get there early" pumpkin patches with trains and pony rides, or braving the traffic over near Half Moon Bay, it was nice to go to a low key but large pumpkin patch.

The boys had a lot of fun -- playing on bails of hay and climbing through tubes. All very low tech, low stress and the right note for this year's pumpkin patch visit.

Today, we continued our Fall traditions with a pumpkin pancake breakfast at Buck's of Woodside, Calif. Buck's is very kitsch -- in the very best sense of the word. The restaurant -- with its alligator farm carpeting, and collections of odd finds, including Mona Lisa in a cowboy hat and the Statue of Liberty holding an ice cream -- is a blast. Each Buck's visit isn't complete without a treasure hunt through the restaurant. And by the way, the pumpkin pancakes are great!

Now having checked off two Fall traditions, maybe we'll go to the pool this afternoon, before the weather breaks and we can finally don our Fall wardrobe.

Fall Swimming

Call us crazy, but we joined a tennis club with a pool on Labor Day weekend. We had every intention to join in August -- once our summer travel had ended ... but we waited, not inspired by the especially cold summer.

The benefits of joining a pool on Labor Day weekend is that they were offering a killer deal, and waved the exorbitant initiation fee. The other benefit was a bit of a gamble, but we figured cold summer, hot Fall and we were right.

This weekend as the temperature peaked in the 90s we enjoyed hanging out at the kiddy pool. The boys loved swimming in one to four feet water. They actually are improving -- better than they did in a year's worth of swim lessons.

Our summer should end somewhere around Halloween. So until that time we'll be Fall Swimming.