Price Park is a beautiful place for a picnic, fun on the playground or hanging out with friends.

'Come out to the park, we'll get together, have a few laughs...'

We’re down to the last few nice days of the year before winter sets in. There won’t be too many afternoons left to go outdoors without having to bundled up under a thick coat, scarf and gloves. Since I work at home, there are many days that I don’t go outside at all except maybe to take the garbage out. But this was a day too beautiful to let pass without getting outside to enjoy it a bit.

Jen and I decided to take advantage of a still-warm fall evening to take her kids to Price Park over on W. Maple Street in North Canton. So we put the bark collar on the dog and headed out.

Maize Valley Farm Market and Winery is the perfect place to enjoy the fall harvest with your family.

(What happens when the Hero of Canton leaves town to visit his kids on at the same time Jennifer’s kids are spending the weekend with her in Canton? He begs and pleads with her to do something fun, take lots of pictures and write an incredibly witty and informative post for his blog. Then he crosses his fingers, does the dishes and hopes she’s as brilliant as he knows she is so his readers are left entertained and educated.)

I wanted to caption this "You won't get bored with these gourds" but Stoney said no.

If you’re anything like me, fall is your favorite season. There’s something about walking around outside when the air is crisp, the leaves are changing and crops are harvested. Give me a glass of apple cider, a pumpkin to carve and a bonfire to cozy up to and I’m a happy girl. Thankfully my kids have inherited this love of all things fall, so October generally finds me hunting the nearest pumpkin patch. A few weeks back we carted them off to Nickajack Farms for a pretty fun filled evening. Our primary regret? Not having enough time to really enjoy everything the farm had to offer.

So when my parents decided to come visit on a weekend when my kids were in town, we went hunting for another farm with a harvest event so we could enjoy an afternoon of fun. I went online, did some research and found out the Maize Valley Farm Market & Winery has boatloads of family fun. It was only about a 30 minute drive from Canton, so on Sunday after church we put the bark collar on the dog and headed out.

Nickajack Farms makes an average Saturday afternoon an educational adventure for the kids.

Certainly no shortage of pumpkins here.

Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays. Except for the candy. I love the candy. And the costumes, those are cool too. Oh, and haunted houses, I loooooove haunted houses! Put those aside and I could take or leave Halloween.

Maybe it’s because I don’t care much for pumpkins. Well, except for pumpkin seeds. And carving jack-o-lanterns. Put those aside and I could take or leave pumpkins.

Now that I think about it, I kinda do like Halloween. Well, aside from the fact that it’s Satan’s birthday. (j/k)

This time of year provides all kinds of out-of-the-ordinary activities for kids, and Nickajack Farms is just one of those places. Jen tries to plan weekly Monday outings with her kids and since the weather was nice she decided to take them (and me!) to Nickajack Farms. We went to an early dinner at Rooser’s and I tormented the waitress with 80′s music trivia. After dinner, with the bark collar having already been put on the dog, we headed out.

The Fear Forest hay-less hay ride.

It was a dark and foggy night. The air was damp and dreary with a full moon in the midnight sky. The howls of werewolves could be heard in the distance coming from the speaker on the back of the tractor in front of us!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning.

In the beginning God created monsters and zombies. They were lonely creatures with no one to scare… so He created man.

The second half of Jen’s and my two-fer night was the Fear Forest Haunted Hay ride and Insanetarium. We left the drive in disappointed having seen the zombie coming of age flick: Zombieland. Not scary, not gory, not funny.

We really needed a good dose of scary monsters right about now, so we headed over to Fear Forest hoping for the best. At 9:15pm the parking lot was barely full and we found a spot right at the front.

Elm Road Triple Drive-In offers old fashioned movie viewing at old fashioned movie prices.

Aaah... the old-fashioned movie experience!

Friday afternoon and work was done. Jen and I headed out to Youngstown. Saturday is her cousin’s wedding so we planned on staying the weekend at her parents, attending the reception on Saturday afternoon and then coming back home to Canton sometime after church on Sunday.

The drive to Youngstown was uneventful. The kids and the dog fell asleep in the car which gave us a break from 20 questions (and no, we weren’t playing the game). After dinner the options were to watch live TV with the folks (What? No DVR?) or go check out some haunted houses. Jen and I opted for the latter.

As a bonus, we decided to check out a movie we’ve been wanting to see which was playing at the the Elm Road Triple Drive-In. This was my second time at this drive-in and I had a mixed experience. If this night had been my first time I would have left with a poor review. However, a month earlier I had a fantastic time at Elm Road Drive-In with no complaints.

Seneca Caverns is a thrilling descent into… well, a very large hole in the ground!

Jen’s and my date to Seneca Caverns had been planned for several weeks so we were looking forward to getting out and doing something new. Nothing says “romantic date” like crawling around in tiny caves 130 feet underground.

Hell.... 40 feet this way!

What we didn’t plan on was starting a 10-day fast that would bring us through two weekends of no food. I never knew this before, but going out and doing things when you can’t eat really sucks.

Luckily we broke our 10-day fast early so the cloud of dread that hung over us last week had been lifted. We were now free and clear to enjoy cave crawling without enduring an empty stomach.

Date-day started out as a typical lazy Saturday morning. Jen came over, made breakfast (mmmm food!) and we watched a couple episodes of Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray (oooh, pretty!) About 15 minutes before Noon O’clock we put the bark collar on her dog and headed out.