October - What a fun month!

 October began quietly, but with much anticipation for an upcoming camping trip and - of course - Halloween. 

Countdown:

Auggie did a fairly good job of impersonating a teenager:

Ella made sure to wear her dresses and curls whenever possible

Auggie and Daniel went costume shopping

...and picked this adorable one:

We also had a small alien invasion:

School kept going on, in the background, with a lot of help from Kristen. 

During the second week of October, we took the opportunity of a break in Agnieszk's schedule to camp at Pinnacles National Park.  It was a wonderful trip. 

When we first arrived, we were the only people in our campground area.  There were deer grazing on grass, dozens of bunnies, and a cacophony of birds. Auggie immediately took out his binoculars and started a nature journal. 

Ella, on the other hand, fell in love with our cabin.   She loved laying on the bed and resting and going in and out through the doors.

When the evening came, we hung fairy lights from our shade canopy, cooked dinner, and introduced the kids to s'mores ....over a gas camping stove. 

The next day, we set out on multiple walks, exploring the campground and gathering fun nature treasures.  Auggie even found a tree swing!

Auggie and Ella also had fun playing in front of the cabin.  Auggie made multiple very convincing campfires - without the combustion, which had been banned since our fire season started. Ella loved moving buckets of sand.  During quiet times, Auggie worked on his Junior Ranger workbook, so he could earn a Pinnacles National Park Junior Ranger badge.  When things got too slow, Auggie would convince us to run football drills with him, sometimes for hours at a time. 

By day 2, Auggie had completely organized his corner of the cabin - even utilizing the wall supports as shelves. 

On Friday, we ventured out of our campground to actually explore Pinnacles Park itself (it had been closed to cars until then). We hiked to Bear Gulch Reservoir, which turned out to be fun and very kid-friendly trail.  Though Ella did most of her hiking on Agnieszka and Daniel's shoulders, Auggie probably doubled his mileage by running up and down the trails and climbing every rock wall he could find.  

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The halfway point of our our hike was a little lake, where we were able to rest and enjoy our lunch. Afterwards, Daniel and Auggie climbed up a nearby hill to explore an open cave. 

On our way back down from the lake, we took the fun "Bear Cave" trail, which took us down very narrow and steep steps and through small tunnels made by fallen boulders.  There was a lot of ducking involved!

When we got back, we enjoyed our last evening in the campground. We can't wait to come back to Pinnacles again. 

The month ended with the much anticipated Halloween. The kids had a great time, despite a more low key experience.  We started with trick or treating in the neighborhood, where many neighbors had set up wonderful "contactless" contraptions for dispensing candy.  We ended up in Albany, our old tradition, trick or treating with the cousins and having a wonderful long evening in their backyard.