The Grotto and the Canyon House

Fall here is so gloriously lovely.  Leaves turning, lots of fruit, sunny and crisp days, pumpkins, deep blue skies.  We've spent the last week wrapping up the soccer season (yippee!), catching up in school (putting the house on the market and taking a trip to Arizona got us off but just a bit).  But we took advantage of the weather for a hike to The Grotto.  This is one of our favorites among many.  Short and sweet with lots of bridges to cross, a shallow creek (see, I would say "stream" but out here it's a "creek" pronounced  :)  "crik").

Neighborhood windfall

Woolly Bear!

Lovely Leaves

The color setting on my camera was doing something funky...just pretend we're preparing for Halloween!

Spotting a spider.

Arriving at the waterfall.  

Nature Journaling

Enjoying the leaves

We've also taken a bunch of "dreaming" drives up to the house we're hoping beyond hope to buy.  The house itself is cute, the lot is private and has stunning views, there is a terraced yard with lots of spots for perennial gardens, lots of trees, there's an open place for an orchard, another for a garden, a treehouse, and a ravine complete with amazing ropeswing.  Oh, my, this is OUR HOUSE.  Please say prayers for us and send good vibes our way---that someone will buy our house and that we'll get to live HERE:

The Ravine

House.....can you see the view?

This is what you see as you drive up the road to the neighborhood---the whole valley spread out below.  You see this from the back porch, as well.  Sigh.