Picking apples with John London

These past few years, we've missed the boat when it comes to apple picking because I refuse to rush summer's end.  In my mind, apple picking is a fall activity and fall shouldn't begin until October.  Unfortunately, around here, most of the apples have been picked by October so waiting is not a grand idea.  I was a bit surprised last week when Rich mentioned apple picking as a potential weekend activity as it wasn't on my radar at all.  

At gymnastics Saturday morning, we learned that Emily's BFF was also going apple picking at the same farm as us that afternoon.  The girls were super excited at the prospect of running into her and her family.  After lunch, I asked the girls to change out of their gymnastics garb into apple picking clothes.  Allie was wearing a purple t-shirt dress with purple leggings.  Emily asked me to pick out an outfit for her so I grabbed jean capris and a t-shirt from her closet.  A few years ago, a friend of mine had given me a box of clothes her girls had outgrown and in that box was a denim jumper with some apple appliques on it.  The girls wore it a few times last year but it had been a bit too big for them.  I had actually forgotten about it until Anna marched upstairs, rifled through Allie's closet and pulled it out with a satisfied look on her face.  "Ah!" I exclaimed.  "The perfect apple picking outfit."

As soon as Allie saw Emily dressed, she raced upstairs and returned dressed in an outfit similar to Em's.  Allie frequently asks her sisters if they'll dress in matching outfits with her.  When they do agree to match, she'll say that they are twins.  So I guess you don't need to dress alike to be a triplet but you do in order to be a twin.  Huh?

Outfit and look at me I'm so cute photo.  That's Anna's I'm cold! face.  Emily was also having boot troubles.



Yay, boots are all set!  Thanks, Mommy.



Apparently, we weren't the only ones who thought that it was a perfect apple picking day.  The line for the tractor/hay rides to the orchards was looooong.





Do you see Anna's bag?  That's really Emily's bag but Anna packed it up with some items and decided to bring it with her.  And what were those items?  Well, here she is removing a pair of sunglasses.



And here she has her Hello Kitty compact mirror so that she can check her hair.



While we were waiting in line, Em's BFF and family arrived and joined us.  The kids had an absolute blast together and we all had a really fun afternoon.





At some point, I started calling Anna "John Lennon" because of her sunglasses.  They aren't necessarily John Lennon-esque but the peace signs on the sides threw them into that category.  The kids thought this was hysterical but they kept saying "John London" instead of "John Lennon" which made it even more hysterical.



So cute.



A family photo.  Sort of.  Anna didn't want to be in the picture but she wandered over when I said, "Come on.  We need John Lennon in the picture with us."  This caused crazy laughter from Emily and Allie.



So, of course, I ended up carrying Anna's bag for her.  At some point, I decided to look in it and discovered that she had packed a small container of hand sanitizer, which came in handy with all the apple eating that was going on.  The girls were using it after eating their apples to wash the sticky off.  I was actually impressed with her packing skills.





I'll end with the wait time for apple cider donuts - 1 hour.  (They were delicious.)