Final Park Day of the Season?

We’ve been quite lucky with our November weather.  Who knows is this will be our last park trip for awhile, as the much colder weather is approaching us.  Although, as long as there is sun, there’s a chance. 

On Veteran’s Day, both Scott and Caty were off of school (obviously) so we took advantage of the beautiful day and the four of us headed to a local park recently for some playing.  I spent the time pushing Hanna around in her stroller, in hopes that she’d fall asleep – no such luck.  Scott and Caty had a blast playing.

Happy Halloween!

 

Halloween has come and gone, yet again.  We had a great day, but a busy one. 

It started off by the girls opening a present that their Great Aunt Barbara and Great Uncle Bill sent them.  Hanna loved her pumpkin socks so much that she wanted to eat them and Caty had a blast making her bead necklace. 

A few days before Halloween, during a rare nap from Hanna, Caty and I spent some time in the backyard carving our pumpkin.  She wanted no part in the pumpkin goo so only one pumpkin got carved.  Thank goodness for Mr Potato Head Pumpkin kits.  We made out with a great looking witch. 

Costume time!

My sweet angel!

My very own princess  

And when the princess costume came off this is what she turned into!  AHHH!!!! 

Now onto our LPA Halloween Party.

 

A parade of costumes

Caty and Aidan posing

Getting ready for the pumpkin roll

Roll those pumpkins!

Chalk time

My little pumpkin

The party was held at a great community center which has a wonderful park.  The weather has been so incredibly nice; we’re very lucky!

And now it’s trick or treat time! 

A New Annual Family Tradition

After living in the Sacramento area for 9 years, we decided to finally make a trip up to Apple Hill for some apple goodness.  We got some suggestions of orchards to stop at – thanks to Melisa and Rod. 
We started our morning by making the hour drive and luckily Hanna slept the whole way.  It can make for a REALLY LONG car ride if she doesn’t fall asleep. 
Our first stop was High Hill where we tried some apple donuts – yumo!!  Caty also got her face painted.  The picture board showed a small butterfly but the end product sure didn’t look like that!
 

Caty spotted this sign and since it cost $120 we opted to just take a picture of it and send the picture to my parents.  

Next we headed over to El Dorado Orchards.  We didn’t do much here as Caty, Hanna and I had just gone on a train ride on Friday at the pumpkin patch.  We did walk around and looked at the different booths.  We also got a nice family picture taken.  The couple that took the picture must have owned one of the booths because the lady gave each of the girls little hand sewn snowmen.  They sure are cute (sorry no picture). 

Caty posing with the scarecrow, although she was a little timid about standing in front of him.  I’m not sure if she expected him to move or what, but she got out of there very quickly after I took the picture. 

Next we headed to Boa Vista Orchards and had lunch – yummy corndogs.  Did some more walking around and browsing what people were selling.  We watched an artist make some paintings with spray paint – they were actually really cool looking. 
From here we headed to Abel’s Apple Acres in search of an apple pie.  Boy did we find one!  Can’t you just smell it!!  Mmmm!!!!

There was a pond which looks much better in this picture than in person – up close it looked like a swamp infested with mosquitos – not so bad in the picture though.  I think that, despite the look of the pond, this might be an annual picture that we take and next year Hanna can be standing with Caty instead of hanging in the stroller. 

We really wanted to find an orchard that allowed us to pick our own apples, most of them don’t.  I sent Melisa a text asking where they had picked apples, as they had just spent a weekend up in Apple Hill.  She recommended Willow Pond Farm, which is such a tiny orchard they don’t even have a web site.  It was a wonderful place though and we had fun picking our apples. 

Looks like we’ll be visiting Apple Hill each fall.  We had a wonderful day and I’m sad that we’ve missed out on 9 years of apple goodness!