Autumn Apple Picking

The colors this time of year are pretty awesome. We made sure we took a trip up to the mountains this year to enjoy it all.
We went up to the Skytop Orchard last Saturday for some apples and donuts. They are known for their apple-cider donuts and I think they make the whole 2 hour drive worth it. There weren't too many apples left on the u-pick trees, but we bought quite a few of the already picked ones, including a variety called Goldrush. They aren't the prettiest apple--in fact they told us that you won't usually find them in the stores because they are so ugly--but they are a really crisp, tart, almost spicy apple--I've never had anything quite like it and they are now on my top 5 list.
More of the beautiful views.
And even though its not the greatest picture, we just end up with so few of our whole family that I feel obligated to post any that I do get.
Wait! I didn't think there were alligators in the mountains! We had lunch at this funny place called Harry and Piggy's--good food and plenty of random decor.

And now I still have about 5 posts to catch us up to date, but first I have to go bake a birthday cake. This time of year is just way too busy.

Growing Pains

Why is it that these kids grow up so fast in ways that I'm not sure I'm ready for (but seem to drag out the parts of parenthood that I could do without, like nightwakings and needing their bums wiped)?

I've been struggling a little lately as my baby is quickly approaching "3", which doesn't sound at all baby-like. And maybe that's what made me so sensitive this afternoon, but when Bean came running into my room after quiet time and exclaimed, "I have a loose tooth!" I had a hard time being very excited with her. She's about the same age I was when I lost my first tooth, but it seems way too soon.

I have just been realizing lately how grown up Bean is getting. She isn't my baby anymore at all--she can reach pretty much anything she wants, so no longer asks for my help. She is mostly self-sufficient in the bathroom (I guess I don't really mind that part.), gets herself ready for the day with only a little encouragement, and can spend hours entertaining herself. She is figuring out so much stuff on her own and just comes to let me know what she has learned, rather than asking me. I'm happy for her independence, but it is requiring more adjustment on my part to figure out where I fit in and I'm seeing that as the trend for the next 15 or 20 years. And I've never been great at adjustments or change. I tend to cling to things I know and understand so my world can stay simple. But I will eventually embrace the changes and just as I get comfortable, I'm sure she'll be leaping through another milestone with me trying to catch up.

I just hope that she'll still want me to read to her after she can read to herself.

The Food Challenge

All my coupon purchases and then our consumption of snacks and eating out has made me crave real food--the kind that I can tell exactly how it came into existance and that I know what is in each bite I take. I'm not even talking about organic food or grass fed beef, although I'd love to take that challenge as well, but I decided that we're going to spend one week eating only homemade foods. No more granola bars, fruit snacks, candy, cold cereal, or fast food. Nothing precooked, processed, or prepackaged.

This is going to take some planning. I realized that we live on tortillas--quesadillas and burritos are our go-to lunch. But this coincides perfectly with Trader Joe's changing our tortillas on us and we're no longer liking them anyway. So I went to the Mexican market yesterday, and along with 4 different brands/types of tortillas to try out, I got masa and lard to make our own.

I also have to decide what to do about dairy products. Milk is processed, although we do have a farm about 20 minutes away that may offer raw milk, but I don't really know much about that and am not sure I want to look into it. I don't need another food idea to obsess about. But I can't see us going a week without milk. Especially because all the alternatives (soymilk, ricemilk) are just as processed, if not more so. I think we'll be making an exception for the milk, and then maybe we can try making our own yogurt. Or maybe we'll just find versions that we can identify everything on the label without a chemistry book and call it good.

So I'm going to give myself a couple weeks to do more research and planning, and to get us through the candy fest and Bugaboo's birthday, and then we'll spend the week of Nov. 9th eating good, homemade food. If anyone is interested in trying this out with us, I'd love to hear about the experience. And I'll post my finds and plans in the next couple weeks.

I figure this is easier than the 100 mile diet, which I'm also very fascinated and tempted by. But we'll start small.

Love My Bug

During bedtime hugs:

Bugaboo: "I love you so much! I want to keep you forever!"

Those of you who have witnessed in the last year the EXTREME favoratism towards his daddy can rejoice with me as I finally get some of the Buggy lovin' around here.

Just a Day (or Two) at the Shore

I promise, this is the end. I actually have a back log of things I want to blog about, but have been feeling very behind and wanted to catch up with our travel pictures. If I didn't plan for this to be our main recorded history of our family, I probably wouldn't worry so much about it, but it is, and so the travel log must be included.

Yo, Ho, Yo, Ho

The Pirates' House was a fun place to stop for lunch. It used to be an inn for seafaring folk, and includes the oldest house in Georgia, the Herb House, built in 1734. An old tunnel that led to the river has an opening in the restaurant--they think pirates used to use it to drag drunken inn-guests to their ships.

I'm still not quite used to the southern buffet--with everything cooked with lard or bacon, its a far cry from Souplantation and the other salad bar places we're used to. But it was great food.

And the kids made great pirates.

Savannah, GA

Loved the architecture in Savannah--its a great city to wander around in, and the weather was pretty nice. A little muggy, but not too hot. I can't imagine being here in the summer, though.

Lizards, Turtles, and Alligators. . . Oh My!

We saw a lot of wildlife last weekend--some of it a little scarier than others.

There were signs all over the island warning us to not feed the alligators, so we stopped at the golf course by the resort we were staying in and sure enough, this guy was just hanging out a couple feet from the edge of this pond. He was probably around 7-8 feet long. Kind of creepy. I can't believe people ever swim in the water around here!The horseshoe crab and his smaller counterparts were all dead--but still cool to look at. And then just some more random shots from the island.

Our visit to the light house:

And how this little bug and I enjoyed our first, very early, morning:

I wasn't too happy to be woken up at 6:30 a.m. Saturday, until we got out to the beach and there was an absolutely gorgeous sunrise (and of course the camera was in the car) and it was so peaceful out there. I love the beach in the early morning. And I love this little Bug, even when he wakes me in the early mornings.

And especially when he's goofy and covered in sugar.

And more of the resort and the beach:

Catching Up

The fever broke and we had an awesome weekend in Hilton Head Island, SC and Savannah, GA, even if everyone did have the lingering sniffles (except Daddy-o, who finally succumbed to the cold and was just plain sick).Thanks to a really great Hotwire deal, we got to stay in a gorgeous resort right on the beach in near perfect weather--79 degrees F, both air and water. Who can complain about that in October? And now I'm wading through some 350 pictures. I get a little carried away when there is a beach. And when there is spanish moss hanging from every tree.

I'll try to edit myself, but there will be a few more posts coming.

Get Me Out of This House!

We've been sick. Not deathly ill, but Bean has had a fever off and on since Saturday, and I had a couple days of very uncomfortable sinus congestion, so we have only left the house twice since Saturday morning.

And both times were to go to Urgent Care (only reason for two trips was because I decided that we couldn't stay for the 1.5 hour wait, so instead we came back later to wait even longer.) Bean was negative for the flu and ear infections, and actually hasn't spiked a fever yet today, so we may finally be on the mend.

It's been a long, boring week. Too much T.V. Too much reading without anything truly exciting to read. Too much time on the computer mindlessly surfing because my head hurt too bad to do anything productive. Too much trying to keep Bugaboo, who has been feeling great, out of trouble. And we're missing some awesome fall weather. I hadn't even been outside for a couple days and when I stepped out yesterday morning, it was about 75 degrees and sunny, a little muggy, but overall pretty nice for October.

Let's hope this illness isn't a sign of what's to come because its a little early in the season for us to be under self-imposed quarrantine. We are in need of a vacation far, far away from this house. And if our luck, and body temperature, holds, we'll get one this weekend when we head to the beach and Savannah, GA, which was top on our list of must see southern cities when we moved here. I've really been looking forward to this trip and think I'll be taking a vacation from the computer while I'm gone as well. I've been staring at this screen way too much this week.

Lego Mania

We love Legos at our house, so when we found out there was a new Lego store in the mall, we had to go check it out. The kids had a great time building with the small Legos (we only have the bigger ones so far) and of course wanted to buy everything in sight. And the weird thing is, they don't even sell a lot of the displays. I guess individual collectors can build a display and then send it in to the store, so some of them are made with older sets that are no longer available at the Lego store, like the Duplo dinosaurs which were a huge hit with these two prehistoric-creature-loving kids (which I did find online, but I don't think we need dinosaurs for $70). Did you know that you can buy a $250 Grand Carousel set? Or $150 Fire Brigade? Yeah, neither did I.I love Legos as much as they do, but we just don't have the budget for it right now. Lots of things for future wish lists.

Raindrops on Cobwebs

Love what rain does to everything outside.

Loving Reading

This girl loves to read. She has always loved to be read to, ever since she was just a few months

old. And she used to sit with a pile of books, turning the pages as if she was reading, by the time she was about 2. But now she's starting to sound out words herself and actually READING! She can read most of Hop on Pop, and on our last library trip, we found the BOB Books. Simple, kind of pointless stories, but the big thing is that she can read them to herself and she loves that part of it. I guess you can only make a book so interesting without using 4- and 5-letter words.

Mushrooms

I love mushrooms. To eat, to look at, to make from clay. . . I saw these in the Family Fun magazine and even though I decided not to make it a family craft, it was pretty fun. Sometimes I just like the peace of crafting something on my own.

These are baked on bamboo skewers so now I can "plant" them in my garden, or more likely in my house plants since I want to be able to see them all the time.

A Day in the 1850's

We spent an awesome day learning about the harvest traditions at the local Latta Plantation back in the 1800's. They do three homeschool days a year where they have people dressed in period costume teaching about all parts of daily life for the family who lived here--its a miniature Greenfield Village, which helps with the withdrawls I've been suffering all summer. I love living history, and luckily the kids are pretty fascinated by it all, too.

We learned about food preservation, and came home with a science experiment to try which shows how salt keeps mold from growing and a renewed interest on my part to try some dutch oven cooking. We learned about cotton,

saw the animals,

including Bugaboo's favorite, the donkey, of course!

Probably our favorite lesson was on keeping bees. The plantation just got beehives this last spring, so the employees are still learning about the whole process, but those are some amazing animals! I wish that we could get our own hive, but I don't think our HOA would be too happy--we're pretty limited to traditional suburban pets.

We also got to watch the "farmer" make candles. Bugaboo really liked this one and didn't want to leave. I think we may have to buy some candle wax (maybe some from those bees!) and try this ourselves.

Great day at school! I love the days that I enjoy as much as (or more than) the kids!