Kick-off to Fall

Labor Day... (yes, I know this was quite a while ago, but I've been a little busy lately!)...as I was saying, Labor Day is typically celebrated as the "Last Day of Summer Fun" with BBQ's and swim parties. This year however, we decided to switch things up a bit and treat it as more of a "Kick-Off To Fall Fun!" The day started off with a yummy pancake, sausage and egg breakfast at church, where the kids had great fun riding their bikes around the parking lot! It was a beautiful, sunny, just-right-to-spend-the-whole-day-outside kind of a day (seems like this summer's had a lot of those - we were so spoiled this year!) so what else could we do but spend the day outside! We headed up along the river to a small little town to go Apple Picking! Half of the fun was in the ride there...a cool bridge, awesome cliffs, a super-long train, the beautiful river and lots of boats! We finally got there, grabbed some bags, hopped on the wagon ride and went to find ourselves some apples to pick!Going there so early in the season was nice because I didn't have to worry about losing my boys in the crowds...not so nice, because there weren't too many apples ready to be picked! Not to worry, we managed to find just enough to make 4 (or was it 5? it was so good!) batches of apple crisp! (of course I thought they'd be great for snacking on too, but after Big Butter dumped the entire bag on the floor and used them all as soccer balls, that idea pretty much went out the window!)

Yep, there was much more than just apple picking going on there! We got a few peaches too! Then we were off to the playland.After a few hours, we were ready for a treat! Somehow I couldn't talk them into a funnel cake (what's wrong with my kids? Those things are a must have at fairs and small town shin-digs!

I won't post all the pics from the playland here...you'll get to see the very similar ones from the pumpkin patch soon! So as i was saying, after eating several healthy apples, we needed a treat. So, we headed back into "town" where we found a cute little (and i do mean little) ice cream shop. So we ventured in and let me tell ya, we had quite a time in that tiny, crowded place! (not a good choice for those who suffer from claustrophobia!) Let me just say that cups, which can be set down, would have been much easier than cones, since I had to hold Baby Butter and both of our melting cones (it was still summer!) while trying to pay, turn the door handle and open it, then get everyone situated, put Big Butter's scoop back onto his cone, turn Baby Butter around so he could sit on my lap and of course keep all the melting ice cream from ending up all over us! We were quite a sight...but that was some good ice cream, and a great way to wrap up summer and jump on into fall!

Hmmmm...as I was reading this, the thought occurred to me that I should have just let the big kids hold our cones through all of that. Guess my brain was on hold since it was very loud and crowded in there, and our ordering had been more than a bit chaotic...I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and out to some quiet, fresh air so we could enjoy our last ice cream treats of the summer!