Orchards are fun. Nobody cries at an apple orchard. There's tons of room to run, it's fun to pick apples, there are fall beauties everywhere you turn, there are pumpkins and lots of treats to look at and sample. Chris and I packed up the kids to head out to have some family fun to a nearby orchard. I packed a picnic lunch and had read to Jensen books about apples - how they grow, what an orchard is, etc. We got to orchard #1 (that's right, we went to two) where the woman behind the counter said that they were not a U-Pick orchard nor could you walk around the grounds unless it was on a Saturday for one of their fall festivals in which case you had to pay several dollars a person to enter. Hmmm...I should have called ahead. The only thing you could do on the day we arrived was shop in their country store. Not what we had planned. So I got back in the car and relayed the info to Chris. Jensen said that she wanted to go somewhere where people were more friendly. So thanks to Chris' smartphone we found a U-Pick orchard to drive to. The kids didn't nap and everyone was getting hungry so by the time we got to orchard #2 we knew we needed to hurry before the window of pleasantness closed. We ended up getting a nice big bag of apples and got a few pictures between the tears. Yes, people do cry at an orchard. Even though the afternoon was not our family's finest moment, Jensen still talks about the fun we had and had a great time celebrating Apple Week at home. We made apple butter in the crockpot, apple chips (which were kind of a flop), made a painting of an orchard complete with bumblebees, and made an apple family tree with each member of the family contributing a hand print. We also had a apple seed toss and did stamping with the the star part of the apple. Even though there were tears at the orchard I consider Apple Week a success.
I didn't caption the pictures...Jensen wanted to show off her green froggy boots. She also wanted to show her orchard painting...she painted a few of the trees with the leaves blowing which you can see in her brushstrokes. Poor Hayden was so tired he wouldn't smile in front of the pumpkins.
