Friday, January 01, 2016

Fall Fun!

One of the exciting things about first grade is the field trip to the apple orchard. This year, it worked out that I could go with Matthew and join in on the fun! I had told Juliette that I couldn't go, so it was a fun surprise when we showed up at the orchard!
Juliette having fun with some friends.

Matthew had a lot of fun.  They had big buckets around that you were supposed to throw apples that had fallen on the ground into and he had a blast doing that.  It worked out well for him because they were mostly bad apples so I didn't have to worry about him throwing and damaging them!  
And he enjoyed sampling the apples too.
Juliette was nice enough to share her juice box with Matthew.  It was a really fun morning.
And in September we celebrated Paul's birthday.  We made his favorite carrot cake and Abbey did the writing with icing and helped to decorate it - she did a great job!
Happy Birthday Daddy!

Fall sports kicked into gear and Juliette got to play big kid soccer for the first time - last year they played 3 v 3 without a goalie, so this year is exciting as they play more as a team, including trying out their skills as a goalie!  Juliette enjoyed being goalie.

Good save Juj!
Abbey got into her soccer team again this year.  It is fun to watch their progress year over year.
And we went on our annual apple picking trip.  Unfortunately, we just could not coordinate with the Acuff's this year - our schedules are just too hectic and we couldn't find a time that we were both free.  So we went separately.  Also, we ended up not going to our usual place.  We decided to try a place that was a bit closer - only 45 minutes away.  We did that because we couldn't find a day that was completely open to make the trip up to Wisconsin.  We had an afternoon of a few hours, so we went somewhere closer to fit it in.  I was disappointed with the place though and hope to return to our usual spot next year.  But we still had fun.  Here we are ready to board the wagon to take us out to the orchard!

Abbey getting ready!
On the wagon!
We chose this place because it had honey crisp apples, which are delicious.  But, we were given one small bag to fill up and you couldn't get more than that.  Well, honey crisp apples are pretty big, so the bag was full after you put in about 6 apples, which made picking go pretty quickly.  Matthew just liked putting apples in the bag.  He would pick them up off the ground and fill his bag and then dump it and start all over again.  It was cute.  We let him do that as much as he wanted, and then filled his bag with good apples right before we left!
Abbey picked good apples!
Matthew filling up his bag!  One of the other things I didn't like about this place was the trees were very close together and there were only 3 rows of honey crisp apples, so you were really close to all the other people picking apples too.  It just felt congested.  Matthew actually found a bag on the ground and emptied it out before we ran over and realized it - oops!  We apologized to the person and she seemed ok with it.  Good thing Matthew is cute!
He didn't know any better...
Ben is a pro at getting up in the tree to get the high ones!

Abbey is pretty good at climbing up there too!
Juliette prefers to use Daddy to get the high ones!
Looks like she got a good one.
Ben trying to fill the bag as high as possible!
Matthew got one to go.
But then he spotted another one!
What a cutie pie!

It was a very fun time, but I just didn't like the place as much as our usual place.  Hopefully we can get back there next year.  I will say, though, that the apples were delicious and GONE within a week!



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