Saturday had some beautiful weather. It started off a bit cool, but by the time the sun had a chance to do its work, we felt quite comfortable in shorts and t-shirts…on the last day of October. Where I’m from (Michigan), October is usually frost in the morning and a good jacket most of the day, so this is definitely a change of pace. It’s got some positives and negatives though. It’s great to see the changing of the seasons and not have to be bundled up, but at the same time, when you’re accustomed to the cold, it feels like you’re missing a little something when the leaves are red/yellow/orange but you’re still in sandals. Missing something or not, it was still a beautiful day.
The MBA families club organized a day at Ganyard Hill Farm compete with a hay ride, pumpkin patch, corn maze, animals to pet…the whole bit. For Amy and I, it was a nice reminder of home. We’ve got several farms and apple orchards that we have had the opportunity to visit each fall. Admittedly, we did this before we had kids. But now that we’ve got kids, it just adds to the fun. Seriously, it’s pretty cute to see these little kids (yours or otherwise) squeal with excitement when a goat licks their hand or eats some cornhusk right from them (don’t worry, they have hand sanitizer right near by).
In addition to seeing your kids have fun, kids also provide an instant medium for conversation. We’ve got just under 300 students in the class of 2011 so I have not had a chance to meet everyone, much less the second year students, but these types of low key social events are great opportunities for conversation. I’ve talked to my classmate Shahid Murtuza a handful of times, but Saturday I had a chance to meet a few second years and my wife made some new connections with the wives of some second year students. It’s great to have other families to talk with and realize your families seem to be experiencing some of the same things. Shahid and I both have an older daughter and a younger son and it’s interesting to see so many similarities in how they interact.
All in all, Ganyards was pretty fun. It was a bit pricy, but we got a partial admission subsidy from the families club budget, so that was nice. We had a fun time, met a handful of other families and even got to pick out a pumpkin as we left.
Happy Fall!
Jeremy Bergwerff