Pumpkins and Apples, Oh My

Now that autumn is really upon us, there are some fun seasonal activities to participate in. At the very least, it’s a great excuse to get out of the house on weekends.

Two weekends ago, we returned to the pumpkin patch that we visited last October, when I looked like this:

Now that bump is these two giant babies:

I totally had a vision for this photo–and I think I actually had it last year too, before these babies were even ‘real’: to stand the babies on either side of a big pumpkin. And voila, it worked! They were really distracted by the scenery (and the tractor wagon ride winding around the field), so I didn’t get the big smiles that I always want, but eh, what are you gonna do.

One more comparison: Our family last year…

and this year!

Pretty crazy. 🙂

After all the pictures, there wasn’t much to do. There are kid activities, but they’re all for bigger kids–a slide, a pile of haybales to climb on, pony ride, petting area, corn maze, etc. Next year we’ll return for more photos and to actually do some of that fun stuff. We did grab one pumpkin to take home with us. Who knows if we’ll get around to carving it, or if it will be left, ignored, outside our front door, like last year’s pumpkin. Heh.

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This weekend we went apple picking in the Fruit Loop! There are a ton of farms and orchards in the Hood River Valley, near Mt Hood.  I’ve been looking forward to this excursion all year.

It was a seriously gorgeous day (it’s been a gorgeous October in general), and we kept getting closer to the mountain and I kept oohing and aahing, but then we got to this. FOR PETE’S SAKE LOOK AT THAT.

We decided to visit the Kiyakawa Family Orchard because they still had a good variety of apples to pick. There were a ton of people there, but once we got out to the trees, we got away from most of them.

We picked a bunch of Mutsu apples, big green ones that are good for baking. (We learned about them on our first apple-picking excursion in the Berkshires two years ago.) We also found some Cameos and Fujis. At the farm stand, we grabbed some Honeycrisps and some pears. In the coming month, there will be a glut of apple baked goodies, as well as apple-based baby foods! Yum for all!

Then it was time for the photos. (Because really, at least half of my reason and excitement for these family outings is the pictures. At least until the babies can actually participate in the fun!)  

 

Hurray for autumn in the northwest!