Cranberry Flavored Fall Adventures

I've had a good time here in Massachusetts. I'm dying to tell you more about the advising meetings, which were really great, but I want to write a nice thoughtful post to include some material from my "dissertation journal" which is in our desktop at home. I drive back home tomorrow (all right, today, since it's after midnight) and although I can't say I'm actually looking forward to it, given the smooth trip up, I'm confident it's not going to be that bad to go back!

Yesterday and today I got to see two longtime friends who also have sons. I've known one of them for 16 years, we met in Brazil where we sang together in a choir, and many years later she got married to a "Brazilian American" guy and we met again here in the U.S.. Her son is 10 months older than my eldest (who's 4 1/2). I met the other friend, who happens to have the same name I do (with an extra l) here in the U.S. ten years ago. She's American, with Brazilian parents, and her son is 9 months younger than my oldest. I hadn't seen them in nearly two years and they didn't really know my youngest son, since they had only seen him as a tiny baby, so it was great! We had a lively group of four boys, aged 2, 3, 4, and 5.
We went to an apple orchard and although there were no more apples to be picked (harvest was earlier than usual this year), we went on a tractor ride and the boys had tons of fun running around the apple trees and with the pumpkins and straw.












Today I met again with one of them, my namesake (who, by the way, may be reading this post -- I'm so delighted to have another IRL reader, Lily!!), and we went to Plymouth and then we drove around a bit to Carver and I was able to realize an old dream to see a cranberry bog. The sun was setting/ had just set, so I wasn't able to take very good photos (OK, as good as I'd like... they did turn out OK :), but it was still great!! I love cranberry juice, sauce, and anything baked with cranberries and I knew that if we move next year, this may be my first and last chance to see a cranberry bog at harvest time. I thought I'd share some of the photos too!
I want to go there again tomorrow in "broad daylight" but I have to go back home! :(