Boo at the Zoo Part 1

Freezing rain. That pretty much sums up Boo at the Zoo the first time around. The girl I work with, also named Nicole...hey it's a great name, volunteers at a non profit and they had left over tickets and we were the lucky recipients! The kids were really excited so although is started to rain and was extremely cold, oh and my fingers were frozen, I grabbed some overpriced umbrellas from the gift shop and we were ready to party. There were some snags that we learned from to make the next time better. For instance it's late so don't forget the wagon, kids don't walk that fast when they're tired. Oh and make sure to remember the tape for Isabelle's shoes because she walks even slower when her shoes are flopping on and off(they were dress up Tinkerbell shoes). Other than that the kids loved petting the bearded iguana, the puppet show, the magic show, and I would have thought they would love the dance party but Alekisio is suddenly shy in front of people. It's funny to see his face get red with embarrassment since last year he wasn't that aware and wouldn't have cared. It was great to know we had another night so we didn't feel bad taking the kids home without doing more. One of the best parts are the cool people dressed up when you walk in. Of course I don't have pictures because after taking a picture in the parking lot the battery died. Yep, I'm great at not charging batteries. It happens alot!

Mapleside Farms

After we went apple picking I took Alekisio to hang out with my friend Julie, her husband Dave, and her son Mikey. We went to Mapleside Farms and let the kids run wild. There was a bouncy slide, play area with a fort, apple dumplings, a corn maze, a hill to roll down, and a hayride. Alekisio was most excited to hang out with Mikey. He doesn't have alot of kids to play with here his age so ever since we went to the splash park this summer he couldn't wait to hang out with him again. They rolled down the huge hill and ran around like crazy. I know they played hard because Sio fell asleep in the middle of eating his onion rings five minutes into the ride home. The corn maze was cute because they made it a scavenger hunt so the kids weren't bored walking through. I mean a maze isn't really super exciting when you're that age. We took flashlights for the maze when it got dark but we finished just as it got dark so the boys ran around playing with them until the hayride. It was a great night but for me the best part was hanging out with Julie. I don't really have friends here and it would be great to make friends at church but honestly I used to try and say hi to the ladies my age at church but I gave up because I'm not going to force people to befriend me and they don't ever say hi. It was nice to hang out with someone who, although I haven't been around her for years, cares and it's easy hanging out not forced. Anyway enough about that. Sio had a ton of fun and it was great watching how happy he was. He's enjoying the fall as much as I am!

Apples!

The kids have wanted to go apple picking so we took them to Miller's. I expected picking to take awhile because I have memories of picking at the church farm and being there all day. Now I realize that's because we were pruning, picking, and working in the warehouse, so picking this time took no time at all. We allowed about an hour and it took about 15 minutes to pick two bushels! We got yummy, huge, tart, winesap apples. Isabelle and Braylen just wanted to hold the bags which got so heavy they couldn't even lift them. Isabelle wouldn't even go in the trees to pick because there were mushy gross apples she didn't want to step in. She's such a girl sometimes. Alekisio got the hang of twisting and pulling them off and filled up the bag almost as fast as I did. This was a few weeks ago and since then we've canned applesauce, pie filling, and we're doing apple butter. YUM!

A Fall Walk in the woods

We went to Mill Hollow to enjoy the outdoors after we tried to go apple picking and they were closed. The colors were beautiful of course and the weather was perfect. It was only a short walk but we picked up pine cones, skipped rocks, and thanks to some nice people who had a ton of bread fed the geese. I don't know if you can see alot of the color change in the trees in these pictures but it was gorgeous.