Farm Fun & Fairytale Land

Never have weekends felt so sweet as during September with a new student in the house. Joe and I keep joking that Ez is the only one of us forced to go out and interact with society on a daily basis, and after a rough first week (more on that in another post), we wanted to treat the whole family to some upbeat, celebratory, fall-themed fun. Ez just so happened to fill up his entire chore chart this weekend too, so we made sure to tack on a few visits to his favorite places: Target ("it's not a toy store, it's TARGET") and "the blue toy store" (Toys R Us). Since we promised those were on the agenda he conceded to allow us to drag him to a farm to pick out our very first pumpkins of the year, and to Fairytale Land for a children's book festival. Despite a lackluster initial reaction to our plans, once we got to the farm and he found dirt to dig in, a hay tunnel which we lost both boys to for at least half an hour, and a mini pony that ate hay right out of our hands, his day was pretty much made. Fairytale Land was a huge hit too, with a couple hundred slides down Jack's beanstalk, and several slides down the tallest playground slide I've ever seen. Decky was content to hang out in a giant hunk of cheese, photo-bombing everyone else's pictures. 

Hiking - AKA: Follow the Ez

Two posts in two days? What is happening??!

It's that old blogger Catch 22 - either we're too busy doing the fun stuff and we've got no time to blog, or we've got time to blog but we haven't done anything worth blogging about. In our case we've been going nonstop ever since Ez's birthday Disney trip in May. Since then we've had two San Francisco trips, a weekend at the lake, a few overnights at my parent's house, plenty of pool trips, a road trip to the beach, and lots of fun activities with my sister while she was here. Whew... But now things have settled down a bit and we're enjoying a few days of rest to do things like put the house in order, sort through a bajillion photos, and put a few (dozen) of them in this here post ;) Thanks for following along on our summer adventures!

Continuing along with my sister's visit, who you can also call: Bianca, Auntie Bianca, Auntie B, Auntie Ianca, and Auntie Anca, we spent two days doing a bit of hiking. We stuck with mild, short hikes, because hiking during a July heatwave is INSANE. Especially with a 40 lb toddler on your back. Feel free to call us crazy because we did it anyway. And thanks mostly to Auntie Anca's amazing photography skills we got quite a few photos that manage to show all of the beauty and none of the heat.

Our first hike was the Consumnes River Preserve, which is ideal for summer because it's completely flat and mostly shaded. Ez surprised me by taking the lead and running off ahead of our group for the entire hike, stopping every once in awhile to tell us "this way guys!" and then sprinting off again. Normally he prefers to stick by our side, and if Joe's around he always asks for shoulder time, but he took his role as leader very seriously and the one time that we all vetoed his path choice (which added an extra mile with absolutely no shade) he stood and sulked for a good ten minutes before he finally rejoined the group.

Our second hike was in Auburn, somewhere we've visited several times this year already, but we hiked a new to us path that looked deceptively flat and wide. We let Ez run ahead and lead the way again, and then suddenly the path got very narrow and rocky with a thirty foot drop to a bed of boulders below. Ez refused to be deterred by the fact that if he fell he would be very hurt (best case scenario) and after giving me several mini heart attacks he finally decided he'd hold my hand after all. Four year olds...

Meanwhile Decky was securely confined to the hiking pack because his natural impulse was to run straight for the cliff's edge and try to dive thirty feet to the rocky river below. Why are kids magnets for any situation that screams death and destruction? Or is it just my kids?

As a reward for everyone making it back mostly unscathed we took a little dip in the river which was the overall highlight for Ez and Declan. 

Visiting With Family

While we were down in Southern California for our Disney trip we wanted to make sure to visit with our family that lives down there so we headed down several days early and my aunt was kind enough to let us stay at her house for a few days. It was so much fun catching up, watching the cousins play, and having a little breather between our long road trip and our Disney days. 

We went to a petting zoo where Ez was most excited to see a rooster. Untillll....he actually saw the rooster. Between the peacocks, the turkey, and the roosters it sounded like an angry bird riot and he pretty much melted to the floor in a terrified puddle for a few moments until we quickly moved on to the goats and the cows. Right before he left he bravely asked to see the rooster again, and after a quick glance to redeem his brave big boy status he was ready to go. Afterward he kept bringing it up: "I was scared of those loud roosters" with a little laugh, like it was an inside joke between us. I love that brave little boy so much. 

We had a pizza party, went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, complete with a margarita the size of my head, were fortunate enough to be around for garbage day, and capped it all off with a cousins' trip to a local indoor playground that was so much fun we had to drag the boys away kicking and screaming. 

Our vacation was off to the best possible start and the boys were so sad when it came time to leave. Little did they know all the fun we had in store for them ;)

Apples, Bees, and a Tortoise

I've mentioned more than a few times that Ez's love of apples runs deep. Like if you offered him a brownie or an apple, there's a good chance he'll choose the apple. And then eat the brownie after. Of course. We actually have to limit his consumption otherwise he wouldn't even eat real food. Clearly apple-picking is a must-do fall activity for us. That or we should just save ourselves some money and plant our own orchard.

Southern California doesn't have a ton of apple orchards, and sadly a lot of them have been destroyed by fires in recent years, so I was incredibly happy to discover that there are quite a few orchards in Central California. Last year we went to Swanton Ranch, which is owned by Polytechnic University. When we got there, I believe Joe's exact words were, "Is this it??" I mean, it was nestled into the side of a hill, and the scenery was beautiful, but it was literally just a bunch of apple trees with a little hut that had a scale and some bags and a box for money. You weighed your own apples and paid using the honor system. That being said, it really was a lovely apple-picking experience. No fuss, the weather started off nice and cool, and they had tons of varieties of apples at the perfect ripeness. Ez LOVED it. He basically ate an apple off each tree and was in heaven as we rolled his little apple stuffed self out of there. 

This year I was going for a little more of that barnsy experience, so we went to Clearview Orchards, where I was pretty much sold as soon as they mentioned they had apple turnovers. They had a barn store with apples, dried lavender, coffee, honey, and said turnovers for sale. They also had a tortoise roaming around a fenced in area that was a huge hit with the kids. Declan took his apple picking very seriously, and had a constant look of stern concentration on his face as he tugged and tugged at apples, eventually growing frustrated that they weren't budging for him. Meanwhile Ez picked up every discarded, past-its-prime apple off the floor and spent the entire trip happily chomping away on dozens of apples. 

Unfortunately I think we were just a tad bit late for this season (even though we came almost exactly a year after last year's trip). A lot of the apples were getting brown and mushy. And it turns out brown, mushy apples attract bees and wasps. And bees and wasps repel this here mama. Like, a lot. So certain parts of the orchard were just completely off limits for me. We wound up getting lots of apples from the barn though, so we got what we came for. We also did plenty of roaming and selfie-taking, though we somehow failed miserably at getting a good family shot (see below). Joe and I were sweating our a**es off in the 80ish degree weather as we traipsed up and down the steepest of hills (usually with a toddler in our arms). By the end of the trip we were all hot and dirty but we enjoyed the experience. We'll just make sure to come earlier next year, and hopefully on a cool day.