Every fall we make a trip to Burt's Farm and to Amicalola Falls. The tradition started a long time ago. Fourteen years to be exact. Keith and I met at Amicalola Falls. It's not quite the way it sounds. There was a Sunday School class trip there. A long story really that includes to two of us being there at the same time. We met there and started hanging out together not long after that trip. The day he officially asked me to marry him later that fall, we drove up to the Falls. 
So, every fall we drive back up to Amicalola. Once we had the boys, the trip took on a new tenor but is great fun and has become very important as we were to learn this year. You see, it was supposed to rain all day on Friday and the high was supposed to be around 48. Absolutely miserable weather. There's only been one other year when we had such bad weather. That year we just went to the outlet mall - the boys were too little to care.
This year we found out that Christopher was not hearing of our not making the trip. "How did we know it was going to be raining there?" he demanded. We tried to explain about weather.com and weather maps, but to no avail. Besides, he concluded, it would be fun to hike in the rain. We (especially the older brother) weren't so sure.
We made it to Burt's Farm and for the first time ever, we were the only ones outside looking for a pumpkin. It was pouring and the water was standing several inches deep. The search was no less careful or thorough because of the weather.
We found our pumpkin and went on to the Falls. We hiked in the rain and went down all 604 steps from top of the falls to the bottom. Fortunately, we had lots of layers and were able to strip down a couple when we got back to the van. For all his complaining, even James ended up having fun. There's just something about boys and puddles. This will definitely be a trip we never forget thanks to Christopher's persistence and reminding us a family tradition is a family tradition, after all.
