When I was a little girl, my grandparents would take me and my brother apple-picking in Indiana, so I thought it would be fun for Joe’s kids. I was a little worried they would think it was lame (they aren’t as fond of the outdoors as most kids are and should be), so I was happily surprised by their excitement when we arrived at Jonamac Orchard yesterday morning, and told them they could pick their own apples. The orchard smelled so good too – it had that lovely Fall smell I adore so much.
We enjoyed hunting down the most perfect of apples (even Joe admitted he had a fun time and he had doubted he would) and ended up with two 1/2 pecks which is more than enough apples for us. We sent some home with the kids and I’m going to find some apple-orientated recipes to use up the rest.
The orchard also had cute little mazes and slides set up for the kids. Joe’s kids particularly enjoyed playing in the grain bin filled with corn. After they tired of playing, we checked out the on-site bakery and picked up a caramel apple pecan pie. Oooo it is so good too! It’s like eating a caramel apple in pie form.
For lunch we stopped at Fuddruckers. Neither the kids, nor myself, have been there before. It’s really cute inside – they have a huge condiment station so you can have your burger any way you like. They also have video games throughout the restaurant. It got pretty noisy in there, so it’s not somewhere to go for a relaxing dinner, but it’s great for kids. I had the three cheese burger and it was delicious! The bun was almost like a croissant – very light and flaky and just yummy.
On the way back home we picked up Home On The Range for our Saturday night movie (I thought it was ok, but the kids really liked it). We also went to the park for awhile. Joe and I were sitting on a bench while the kids ran around but his daughter didn’t want to play, so I told her she couldn’t play the video game she kept talking about all day (she is hooked on Rollercoaster Tycoon whereas my fascination with it has already died down) until she got some exercise.
I quickly got bored just sitting around, so I started playing tag with the kids and then Joe joined in. It was a beautiful day, but for some reason no one was out, so we had the entire playground to ourselves. We ran around like fools for a good hour if not longer. I have a bunch of bruises on my knees from crawling through this one tunnel to chase after the kids, but it was so much fun, it was worth it. Plus I think Joe’s daughter learned a value lesson as she said to me, “exercise is fun when you make it into a game.” Now there you go! I really hope she gets motivated to move around more. They sit around their apartment at home all the time which is doing nothing good for their health.
After all the running around and stuffing my face, I suddenly felt completely exhausted by 9:30 pm and went to bed. I haven’t felt that exhausted in so long, but it felt so good to just crash. I slept for 9 glorious hours before we had to get up and get the kids ready to go home.
After we dropped them off we did some shopping. Among our stops was Walmart, K-Mart, Kohls, Michaels, The Container Store, the gas station, and Blockbuster. And we were still home by noon. :)
I ended up picking up a fog machine from Walmart for our Halloween decorating contest at work. I’ve got a whole entry waiting to be written about that, so I will say no more. We also got another cd rack from The Container Store, and I picked up a cute little Halloween sweater for Joe’s daughter’s American Girl doll. It’s supposed to be for a teddy bear, but I think it will fit. Plus it was only $2.99. I was actually surprised by some of the furniture available at K-Mart. We rarely shop there anymore ever since they made the local one into a Home Depot, but they had a really nice twin-size bed frame for only $125. Since they come in white and pine, we’re going to go back after we move and get one each for the kids.
I think I’m going to make some meatloaf and mashed potatos for dinner tonight. I’ve never made meatloaf before, so I’ll let you know how that turns out.
You can check out a few more photos taken at the orchard here.
P.S. It’s a good thing we went apple-picking yesterday as I just found out that all the apples are now gone! Apparently the cold front in May ruined a lot of the crop.