Apple Picking.......and more!

One of my absolutely most favorite days of the year is Apple Picking Day!  When I had a preschool program, I took the kids Apple Picking on their first field trip every year.  And now, it's become a wonderful tradition to take our oldest grand daughter every year.   Our local apple farm closed a couple years ago, so we had to find a new one.   Cider Hill Farm was recommended to us, and I was quite pleased with the place.

Emily and I are ready to roll!

You begin with a wagon ride to bring you up a big hill to where the apples are located.   Since it's later in the season the apples were, as we suspected they would be, already picked at the bottoms of the trees.  So Emily had to use any means necessary to get the apples up high in the trees.

We picked mostly Cortlands because we love them both to eat and to make pies and apple crisp.

Munching on an apple while picking is permitted!

Thank goodness for the wagon ride back down because those apples were Heavy!!!

Emily said she already had a couple of  big pumpkins at home but she'd like to pick out a small one.   She chose one with a big stem, so she can paint it to look like her favorite animal.....a Narwhal!

I had to re-create the pumpkin picture that I try to do every year.  This year she was a bit too big to sit on any of the pumpkins!

As usual, I had to have some apple cider donuts.   While I was in the bakery, I picked up a whoopie pie for Hubby and and some chocolate chip cookies for Emily.  Add a jug of cold apple cider, and we were in business!  

When I asked Emily if she still wanted to come to our house to make some apple pie, I was very happy to hear her say, "Of course! That's the best part of the day!"

She really loves using the apple peeler/corer/slicer.   She took great delight in going as fast as she could to create as much juice as possible!

And when it came to rolling out the dough.....the more flour the better!!

Last year we tried to make a tie-dye pie but the colors all mixed together and it looked pretty bad.  This year, we decided to go a different way.

We made different colored dough, and Pepere taught her how to weave a pattern on the top crust.

Sometimes it takes four hands!

And.........ta da!

While the pies were baking, Hubby and Emily had a chance to play some music together.  Emily played Pepere's Ukulele while he played either guitar or piano.  She played her new favorite, "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You."  And Pepere took her upstairs to listen to an Elvis recording of that song.

Meanwhile, Memere volunteered to clean up the kitchen....not an easy task with these two messy bakers!!

Finally it was time for the pie to come out of the oven!

We were glad that the colors held even after the pie was baked.

And Emily enjoyed her first taste of apple pie!  She never wanted to try it before....but she loved it!

Such a great day and a great way to spend time with our beautiful grand daughter!