This October has been glorious! Nearly every day has been blue sky and 70s, with bright orange, golden, and auburn trees covering the valley. I have fully embraced the turning of the seasons with as many cozy activities and recipes as I can. It’s nearing the end of decent hiking weather, so I felt a sense of urgency to get this bucket list item crossed off before temperatures get too low to make this enjoyable. We picked a perfect weekend and made it a long girls morning!

My husband was gone all weekend working and elk hunting, so I asked a friend of mine to join Brynnley and me on a morning coffee date and a hike into some Boise foothills that I hadn’t done before. I used the All Trails app on my phone to find a hike that would be between 3-5 miles because I wasn’t sure how much longer Brynnley would tolerate in her backpack carrier. If I didn’t have Brynnley with me, I’d happily hike into the double digit mileage. But I wanted to include her and this little 7 month old can only go so long without a feeding, diaper change, and nap. I also wanted a trail within 45 minutes of my house so we weren’t spending more time driving than we were hiking. I found a good-looking trail called the Eagle Ridge Foothills Loop that was listed as 4.9 miles long.

We met at a fun local coffee shop that used to be an old church in downtown Eagle, Idaho called Rembrandts. Brynnley was in the best mood, showing off her brand new tooth with big grins to anybody else in the room that would look her way. The hike trailhead was 5 miles up the road from the coffee shop, and the properties we drove past were so dreamy. Large rolling hills with giant mature shade trees, and some even had their own vineyards and fluffy sheep grazing in their yards.

Initially I put Brynnley’s car seat into our Bob stroller, hoping she would be able to nap on our loop. The trail was absolutely NOT meant for a stroller though; it was covered in rivets and Brynnley was bouncing so much as we took turns struggling to push the stroller at about a 30-minute-per-mile pace. It was comical. We were laughing so hard at how difficult it was to keep the stroller pointed straight ahead and how many times she would veer off into the weeds. All of our efforts were completely wasted because there was no way this babe was napping through the wild ride; we turned around after about half a mile and moved her into my Osprey backpack carrier instead. The trail system has many forks that stem from the regular path, so we picked a different two-mile loop instead because I didn’t know how long Brynnley would be in good spirits before finally melting down in need of a good nap. Alanna carried Brynnley up and down the steep trail along the ridge line and we had so much great conversation on our beautiful fall morning hike.

Afterwards, I lit a delicious fall candle and baked a batch of snickerdoodle cookies. I added pumpkin spice to the cinnamon mixture, and I also folded in white chocolate chips because they are my husband’s favorite. I packaged some up to give to my parents, and the rest for Zeb to take hunting and share with his family.

Do you think Pumpkin Spice bagged salad is too far? I was intrigued, but it’s not something I would buy again. It had maple roasted pepitas, cornbread croutons and pumpkin spice vinaigrette.

I went to the back of my coffee mug cupboard and pulled out one from my “leaf peeping” vacation with my mom in 2019. Leaf peeping is the term used for travelling/road tripping around New England in fall to admire the foliage. It’s unlike anything we have in the west. Many of the tiny towns of Vermont and New Hampshire have adorable bed & breakfasts and inns, and it was such a fun girl’s trip.

As I drank my decaf pumpkin spice coffee from my souvenir mug, I texted my mom asking if we needed to plan a leaf peeping sequel for 2023. She gave me the green light to go ahead and start researching, which is half the fun to me! I LOVE watching other people’s travel vlogs on YouTube and looking up travel guides on bed & breakfast recommendations. We did a ton of research prior to our 9-day roadtrip in 2019, and I had nearly every meal and coffee shop listed out in an itinerary I typed up for us. That vacation was the definition of “cozy” and I think I could still write a travel recap post for this blog (much like my San Juan Island recap). But in the meantime, I do have a YouTube vlog to showcase the beauty of this part of the country: Leaf Peeping 2019.

My hike with Alanna last weekend was so fun, I repeated it again this morning. When the weather is this PERFECT, it almost feels mandatory to go outside and embrace it as much as we can. This time, we hiked a nearby trail called Spring Creek in Avimor with my mom and a few of her friends. Brynnley joined in her Osprey carrier for all 5.5 miles. She has always been difficult to get to sleep and nap, so I was completely floored when she actually fell asleep in her upright position for the last mile. I could stare at my sleeping baby all day, it is one of the sweetest little views.

Since this has turned into an Autumn Appreciation post, I’ll finish off with the little holiday touches I added to Brynnley’s nursery over the weekend. Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday, but now that I have a daughter I want to make it fun for her. When I saw these cute PINK Halloween decor pieces at Walmart, I had to snag them for Brynnley.

Enjoy the rest of your October weekend!