An Apple a Day...

special note: the adorable outfit that Cutie Face is wearing was a special gift from Whimsy Couture's incredible Etsy Store--we won it on her blog and it was soooo fun for her to wear!

On Sunday morning, we headed north for a family adventure--I had a 5k Cross Country Road Race (part of the Atlanta Track Club's Grand Prix series) so we decided to make a day of it and go apple picking, too.

The day started out COLD--39 at the start of the race! but it soon warmed up and by the time we reached the apple orchards of Ellijay, all was warm and bright. The weekend before was the Georgia Apple Festival so that might have been fun but at least this weekend it wasn't too crazy crowded!

We started at BJ Reece's farm. It had tons and tons of apple choices:


We decided to lunch there and Cutie Face enjoyed sitting on the picnic tables and devouring broccoli:


Her dessert came in the form of an apple cider sample:

We weren't too enamored with their apple orchard, though, so we continued down the street toward R&A Apple Orchards. We were very very pleased with their wonderful family operated orchard--everyone was super friendly (not so much at the prior stop). We sized up their trees and decided that the bounty of apples dripping from their trees would be worth the $8 you-pick-peck size bag.

Check out these apple trees!

Their farm was pretty cool--we all explored it before we started picking (can you believe how gorgeous a day it was, too? picture perfect fall weather!)

They had a very random claw-foot tub in the middle of their farm. I had to take a picture:

To start the picking off right, J decided to run and jump and get the lone apple left on top of a tree (he's crazy):


Thankfully, he succeeded and we only had to wait for him to try twice :0

Then we put Cutie Face to work picking her supper.

I jest. She picked one apple with J's help and then wandered around the orchard while we did the rest.

We piled a whole bunch of apples at her feet to occupy her...

She got a kick out of it

and even tried to "bob" for apples:

We finally filled our bag...and J decided to see what weighed more. Cutie Face or a peck of apples:

I screamed and made him put her down so there wasn't much time for weight calibration. He did, however, then try to make her carry the bag. MEAN DADDY.

Once inside, we checked out more apple varieties (we could only pick Rome apples on Sunday). Cutie Face LOVED going up and down the aisles of apples.

So, now we have a peck of Rome and a 1/2 bushel of Winesap apples just waiting to be made into something delicious...perhaps for a Monkeys on the Bed! tutorial, too!?!

Cutie Face rode out the afternoon on a tractor and loved it all...
what a great Fall Afternoon Adventure!