Pickin Apples

I've gotten myself behind again, and I should probably be blogging about Halloween, but instead I'm going to write about going up the hill to pick apples (which I have decided is a way more awesome thing to do with toddlers than picking berries...no heat, no thorns, and the baskets fill up so. much. faster.)

The hay maze may have been closed, but they still let us pose for pictures!

Last week I thought I'd be clever and go up on a Tuesday since it tends to get pretty crowded on the weekends up in Apple Hill.  I figured that way we could go to a pumpkin patch on the way.  It seemed like everything would be open since it was less than a week until Halloween and the websites all said they were open, but I was wrong.  Apparently only the gift shops were open and all the fun things (trampolines, hay mazes, and pony rides) are only open on the weekends.

Myla is infatuated with pumpkin contests.  She really wants us to grow our own pumpkin next year...we'll see!

I wouldn't have thought a hay maze required official supervision; however, someone apparently has to be there to collect tickets. :( The girls were so excited to go pick apples, though, they thought the two pumpkin patches we tried along the way were just a bonus.

Pumpkin full of apples, smile full of stars. 

A few weeks ago we found this great little orchard for picking apples.  Nothing fancy,  just apples, three or four tire swings hanging between some old pine trees, and a couple bales of hay to climb on when you're done.  The girls loved it (and so did I).  This time, I planned on picking a bunch and I warned Quinn, my little monkey that thinks I should always hold her, that she would have to walk back after we picked apples (we're talking 200 yards tops).  She said she could do it and went about her merry way helping mama pick apples.

Last smile before the storm...

We picked about 20 pounds of apples and it was time to go back when Quinn decided she didn't want to walk.  Nothing could make her walk.  The sun would fall into the ocean before she took a single step.    The end.  There was no way I could possibly carry her and 20 odd pounds of apples brimming out of a cardboard box.  Someone was going to have to compromise and it seemed apparent to me that the box of apples was not going to grow legs and walk.  I thought maybe if I started to walk away....she called my bluff.  I walked around the row of trees, but she still refused to come.  In fact, I knew she wasn't coming because I could hear her screams still erupting from the very spot I'd left her.

Quinn was not going to walk, so I set my box of apples down to convince her I couldn't carry her.  She wasn't convinced, so I held her arms while she stiff-leg kick marched and screamed and I thanked her for walking with me until we reached the box of apples, then I laid her back down to kick in the dirt while I carried the apples a little further.  It was a slow, tedious relay to the back to the apple stand, but we made it.  I pray every day that she carries this same tenacity with her through the precarious years of peer pressure!

Ladybug down.

Trampoline, country style.