My Fall Bucket List: Making the Most of the Cozy Season

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Hi friend,

It’s September 1st, so that means that it’s the start of my absolute favoriteeeee season!! Bring on all the -ber months, baby! I wish I could put into words how much joy this change of seasons gives me every year. Burrito me in my coziest blanket, bury me in pumpkin everything, and you can call me a happy gal.

The start of football season, the temperatures dropping (to a point where I can step outside without instantly sweating, thank god), and the fall and winter holidays right around the corner? This is my time to thrive. There’s so much to look forward to, and yet it feels like this time of year flies by way too quickly every time.

Every year, I have all these grand ideas of things I want to do, places I want to go, and little traditions I want to squeeze in before fall is over. And somehow every year, there are inevitably a few that I never get to. This year, I’m making it my mission to put it all in one place and check everything off before winter arrives.

Spend a Day at the Orchard

A crisp autumn day spent at an orchard is essentially the equivalent of attending my own personal theme park. I can spend almost an entire day at one, or at least a long afternoon! The options are endless. You can get jostled around on a hay ride, drink apple cider, get lost in a corn maze, pick apples and pumpkins, and enjoy some fresh donuts and caramel apples.

Some orchards around me even have cider slushies or wine, animals to visit, playgrounds and barrel train rides for kids, live music, or even goat yoga. I’m not kidding when I say that the options are endless! There are usually some good photo ops too, whether it’s a cheesy face-in-hole board or a dreamy sunflower field.

This activity is at the tippy top of my bucket list this fall, so naturally, it earned the first spot. I love that a single stop can turn into an entire memorable fall day while checking off so many of the little things I look forward to this time of year. Apple cider? Check. Donuts? Check. Pumpkins? Check. A few cute pictures along the way? Hopefully, check. It’s basically several fall bucket list items wrapped into one, so I’d say it’s perfect.

Take a Fall Color Drive

This one will be an easy one to check off the list. We do enough traveling as is that we can easily tie it into one of our trips this fall. I love driving around this time of year, especially when you start to get into some elevation and can see all the earthy shades of red, orange, and yellow as the trees change.

This may or may not happen this year, but I think the ultimate way to check this one off would be taking a drive through the Tunnel of Trees located in Northern Michigan. It’s a scenic twenty-mile stretch of road that’s famous for its twists, turns, and stunning views. I’ve driven through it once before during fall, and at times, it felt like I had been transported somewhere else entirely. Absolutely stunning.

Carve Pumpkins

This tends to be one activity that falls off the list every year for some reason. Oftentimes, my husband and I will buy pumpkins (and decorate our front porch with them!), but then end up running out of time to actually carve them.

Last year, we did the trendy “baby in a pumpkin” pictures with our daughter, so I guess you can technically say that we carved a pumpkin. I’m just not sure that three big holes are going to score very high on the creativity scale. This year, I plan to pick out pumpkins with my little family, have my daughter pick out her design, and make it a whole family affair to carve them together. I can’t wait to see what my daughter’s reaction to the pumpkin guts will be. I vividly remember not wanting to touch that cold, nasty gooeyness when I was a little girl. We’ll see if she has the same reaction or dives right in without a care in the world.

I’d love to save the pumpkin seeds to roast afterward, too! Roasted pumpkin seeds are so yummy, yet they’re a little snack that I haven’t had in ages. I actually saved the seeds from the pumpkin we used for our photo shoot last year, but ended up not doing anything with them because, you guessed it, I ran out of time. It seems to be a common theme around here!

Jump in a Pile of Leaves

This one makes me very nostalgic for my childhood and the leaf piles and leaf “houses” we used to make. My brother, grandmother, and I would rake lines of leaves into entire floor plans in my grandparents’ backyard, creating different “rooms” and our own little leaf houses. It’s one of those simple childhood memories that has stuck with me. Now, it’s a fall activity that I can’t wait to share with my daughter.

It should be a pretty easy one to check off, considering our yard gets buried in leaves every fall – to the point where we can barely keep up with them. We can have leaf piles galore and still have plenty leftover. This year I want to make one of those giant, movie-worthy piles that you can actually disappear into when you jump. It may take a little extra effort to get that many leaves into one spot, but I think we can manage.

Have a Harry Potter Movie Marathon

I’m a bit of a Harry Potter nerd. I originally grew up reading them with my parents and have reread the series so many times now that I’ve lost count. I know it’s at least more than seven. 😅 At this point, the series has become my ultimate comfort read.

This is also one of the rare occasions where I enjoy the movies just as much as the books. Usually if I read a book first, I end up disappointed with the movie adaptation, but I love these movies. Rewatching the series has become its own comfort tradition for me, especially in the fall and winter. Something about the movies just matches the vibe this time of year, and it feels right to hole up inside for a movie marathon when the temperatures drop.

Last year, I finally dragged my best friend onto the Harry Potter bandwagon, which means I’ll have some company for this year’s movie marathon! She loves a theme just as much as I do, so she bought our kiddos matching Harry Potter pajamas from Little Sleepies – they’re perfect. We’re going to have the best time getting the girls all tucked into bed, popping some popcorn, and settling in to binge a few movies. I can’t wait!

Host a Game Day Watch Party

I’ll start out by saying – I’m not an avid sports fan. I enjoy watching football games, particularly if they’re in person, but I don’t necessarily go out of my way to watch every game of the season. I think the funnest part of football for me is the atmosphere of a live game – the deafening roar of the crowd, the palpable tension, and the piercing whistle of the refs. There’s a certain energy that comes with being surrounded by a bunch of people who are all invested in the same thing.

That’s why I want to host a game day watch party! I think it would be so fun to recreate a little bit of that game day energy at home with friends, good food, and everyone cheering (or yelling) at the TV together.

Plus, you know I love a good theme. Give me any excuse to hunt down some decorations, break out all of my hosting dinnerware, and Pinterest the heck out of some football-themed food and drinks. Honestly, the excitement of the planning may be just as exhilarating as the actual game day will be for me.

Since football season runs well into winter, this is one bucket list item that I’m giving myself a little extra time to accomplish. If it doesn’t happen before fall officially ends, I’ll still count it as a win as long as I can check it off sometime before football season is done!

Bake Something Inspired by the Season

As I said above, I love a good theme – this applies to more than just party planning. Fall-themed baking is my favorite! It’s so much fun because you can take it in two completely different directions. You can embrace all the yummy fall flavors like apple, pumpkin, cinnamon, and maple, or you can make your treats look like they belong in fall. Make them pumpkin or ghost shaped, garnish it with toasted nuts, or pull out your seasonal serving ware.

I make these easy two-ingredient pumpkin muffins year-round, so while they would technically check off this item, I’m going to go the extra mile and try something new too. I’ve been eyeing these pumpkin-shaped cinnamon rolls and this spiced pumpkin cake, so I plan to make one (or both!) of these, along with a batch of my muffins. I don’t think anyone in my household will complain about an abundance of sweets!

Go Wine Tasting

I love going wine tasting any time of the year, but sitting at the top of a rolling hill at a vineyard and taking in the beautiful views of the changing trees can’t be beat. Northern Michigan has some of the best wine country (in my opinion), and of all the places I’ve been wine tasting, I think it takes the cake for the most beautiful scenery.

I’m trying to fit a lot in this fall, so I may not get the chance to spend an entire day hopping from vineyard to vineyard like I’ve done in the past. I’d still love to at least find a new place to sample some wine, though. Give me a glass of wine, some crisp fall air, and a pretty view, and I’ll consider this one successfully checked off the list!

Plan Our Annual Fall Get Together

For the past few years, a group of my friends have unintentionally created a little fall tradition that has turned into something I look forward to every year. It all started when one of my old college roommates was trying to find a way to celebrate both my birthday and another friend’s. She took our shared love for fall, added a fun activity, and somehow our annual fall get together was born!

So far, we’ve painted our own fall-themed welcome mats (put the paint on thick if you’re using stencils, trust me!), attempted to solve a murder mystery (& utterly failed), put together our own wine tasting and pairings, and spent a day at an orchard. The activity may change each year, but as long as we’re together, we’re having the best time.

As we’ve gotten older and everyone has branched off into their own lives, it’s gotten harder and harder to find a time when everyone’s schedules magically line up. I think that’s part of why I cherish this tradition so much. We all know that at some point during the fall, we’ll be getting together. The expectation gives us plenty of time to get it on the calendar and make sure it actually happens.

Spend a Fall Day at the Zoo

This one may seem like an odd addition to my fall bucket list for some, but just let me explain. My daughter was gifted a membership to our local zoo for her birthday, which was such an amazing idea. The only problem? It has been so stinkin’ hot this summer that we haven’t used it near as much as I had planned! Like I said earlier, I don’t do well in the heat. Long story short, I get too sweaty, I burn easily, and it’s just not a fun time overall.

With the temperatures finally dropping to a more manageable level, I’m making it a priority to use our membership as much as we can before the zoo closes for the season. Walking around looking at animals sounds about 100x more enjoyable when I’m not melting. My daughter has a ball every time we go, and I genuinely enjoy it too, so adding a few fall zoo days to my bucket list was an easy decision.

Our local zoo even hosts a fun Halloween event that I haven’t been to before, and I’d love to experience it this year! It sounds like it’s a fun time for the whole family with character meet and greets, live entertainment acts, and trick or treating. It sounds like the perfect way to switch things up and make one of our zoo visits a little more festive later in the season.

Decorate the Porch for Fall

Ever since buying our house, I’ve had to rein myself in when it comes to decorations. When I was living in apartments and constantly moving throughout college, it was easier to just throw up a couple of cute seasonal things and avoid accumulating too much stuff. I already had limited space and enough boxes to move from place to place. I didn’t need to add more and more bins of seasonal decor to the mix too.

Now that I have what feels like endless storage in our house, I have the opposite problem. I have to hold back my excitement and remind myself that no, I do not need to completely overhaul my seasonal decorations every year. I’ve been doing a good job at just adding a couple pieces that I absolutely love each year instead.

Getting to decorate a front porch however I want was one of the things I was most excited about when we first moved into our house. I love decorating the inside too, but there’s something about coming up with a new look for our porch each year that gets me giddy.

This is one bucket list item that I would like to check off pretty soon – hopefully this week or next, depending on how much time I have with the holiday weekend. I don’t have a specific vision for this year’s porch yet, but it’s usually something that just comes together as I go. Once I go through the decorations I already have and pick up some mums, pumpkins, and gourds, I’ll build my little autumn setting from there.

Visit a Farmers Market

I have a few good farmers markets scattered around my area, but unfortunately, none of them are super close. I’d love to go every weekend and stock up on fresh finds before grocery shopping, but it’s just not realistic with the drive. They’re great to visit year-round, but I haven’t made it to one yet this year, so of course it’s making it onto my fall bucket list.

There’s usually so much more to browse than just the typical produce, especially this time of year. I’m looking forward to wandering through the different stands and seeing what I can find – fall decor, baked goods, local honey, homemade dog treats, and hopefully a few surprise gems that I didn’t even know I needed. Half the fun of farmers markets is going in without a shopping list and seeing what you come home with!

Cozy Up Around a Bonfire

Smore’s, smore’s, smore’s! Give me some more smore’s! I love getting a bonfire crackling, bundling up in my comfiest sweats, and settling in to watch the stars. Roasting marshmallows is basically a requirement anytime we get a fire going around here, especially once the evenings start to get a little chilly.

It can be hard to find quality time for just me and my husband now that we’re busy with our daughter, so I’m hoping we can make this bucket list item into a little fall date night for the two of us. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy – just a crackling fire, some good tunes playing in the background, way too many smore’s, and uninterrupted time to sit and chat. That sounds like a pretty perfect fall night to me.

Reread ACOTAR & Read the New Release

If you’re a fantasy reader, it’s very likely that you’ve heard we’re getting not just one, but TWO new additions to the ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas – one this October and another in January. Eek! I’m beyond excited to dive back into Prythian.

I haven’t started my reread of the series yet, but I’m planning to jump in as soon as I’m finished with my current read. It’s been a couple of years since I last made my way through the series, so I definitely need the refresher before the new release. You won’t catch me complaining though – I love the world that SJM has created, so rereading these books hardly feels like a chore.

You can catch me staying up way too late getting sucked into these books for the next couple of months. I’m hoping to finish my entire reread before the release of A Court of Splintered Harmony on October 27^th, but regardless of if I make that deadline or not, ACOTAR will officially be my series of choice this fall. Catch me in Prythian. ✌🏼

Making the Most of the Season

As I wrote this post, I found myself getting more and more excited for what a fun and memorable time these next few months will be. I’m going to try my hardest to make it through every activity on this list, but I won’t beat myself up if I don’t quite check everything off. Anything I miss I’ll just prioritize next year!

Because while yes, I’d love to have a bucket list-worthy fall, I’m not going to make myself miserable trying to squeeze everything in just for the sake of checking a box. The whole point is to slow down and be intentional, enjoy the season, and make some good memories along the way. As long as I can do that, I’d say this fall was bucket list-worthy either way.

Now, bring on the -ber months!