The Orchard

I thought it would be fun if the girls and I went apple picking this past weekend. Thought. I had visions of us walking up to trees and picking beautiful apples and getting gorgeous pictures all the while munching on a few red delicious along the way. It didn't really work out that way.

Saturday's weather was cool and sunny. Just a beautiful fall day. We slept in until 7:30 am which is quite late for us but we had a busy Friday with play dates and a late bed time. Ruby insisted on wearing a short sleeved shirt. Like threw a temper tantrum when I tried to coax her to wear something else. I knew she was going to be cold wearing that but finally just gave up. The orchard is about an hour away so I wanted to get going but had to keep telling myself "It's ok. There is no timeline that you have to follow today. Take your time. Don't stress." Before we finally got out of the house at 10:15 I had told myself that about 4 times.

We arrived at the orchard and it was windy. And cold. Oh dear, I thought, how long will it take our Ruby to get cold? The nice gentleman who ran the place told us where there were apples left. This particular orchard mainly has earlier apples. I always thought we picked in the fall back home but at this orchard the best picking was August and early September. He assured me that we would still find some apples though and to have a great time. As we were walking away he stopped me to give us our apple picker. It was like 12 feet long. So off we went. Mama who was holding her camera bag & 12' apple picker, Piper who was in charge of the bucket, and Violet who was in charge of Ruby. What a site we must have been. City folk coming up to pick apples. I can just hear them "Did you see the mama? She was wearing flip flops." *insert hearty laugh here*

It wasn't nearly as windy in the orchard, thankfully the trees sort of shielded us. We started walking and saw what the man was talking about, the apples were spent. There were tons of old apples on the ground and the ones on the trees didn't look very good. We walked around and around finally finding a decent section of trees to pick from. That would be when Ruby slipped on apple mush. It was over. Over. She cried and I tried my best to clean it up but I didn't have my wipes with me and it was difficult. Then she wanted to be held. Why did I think this was a good idea again? Our big bucket was filled with apples (I have absolutely NO idea what kind they are but they are good) and we started back. Now I am carrying my camera bag, the apple bucket (very heavy 5 gal bucket of apples), and Ruby. Piper and Violet are in charge of that apple picker that we didn't even use! That was comical to watch because one had the front and one had the back but it forced them to work together and they did a great job and only fell once :) As far as the gorgeous pictures go well there are none. The apple mush incident sort of squashed that idea. Red eyes and all. But I cheered everyone up at the very end after we paid and put the apples in the car. With a promise of a granola bar I got them to at least look at me and give me their best "Cheese" pose.

But we created a family memory. Much like the other memories we have created. Mama takes girls to *wherever* by herself. Ruby throws tantrum before leaving. Mama is stressed. Older girls fight. Mama gets more stressed. Do fun family event in which Ruby will at some point throw a fit and cry.
Mama needs a drink.
The girls and I laughed about it later that day. At least the older two find the same humor in our days as I do. It's all about the memories though. And on Saturday the apples.