Every fall (since 2011) we make the trek to Hood River and visit our favorite orchard on the fruit loop: Mountain View Orchards. The drive is scenic, the views are beautiful, and the apple picking is good. It’s a kid friendly orchard, too, so that’s a plus.
We had planned to go last weekend, but since Elias was so sick we had to postpone. Luckily, the weather was absolutely gorgeous today so we were very lucky. We started off in the right mood as we entered the gorge and Elias exclaimed, “Look at how beautiful it is! I can see everything here.” (Then Simon and Elias proceeded to get into a short argument about whether it was a river or a lake…but that’s neither here nor there).
This year we invited some friends to come along with us after church. We were only about ten minutes ahead of them so as soon as we got there I took in the view.
We also somehow managed to all use the outhouse, play on the play structure, save another family from a potty training crisis, and have some fun photo-ops all in that short time. I guess we’re efficient!
Then we got to apple picking. The boys were very excited, and did not quite understand how it was going to work when we first started. Simon kept calling out, “apples where are you?” Then he very excitedly ran up to one he spotted on the ground and called out how he had found one. I didn’t let that one actually get in our wagon, but he caught on soon enough. Luckily there was enough low hanging fruit that they could even get some unassisted!
Elias was an expert in no time.
Simon found the perfect apple, and Daddy had to contort himself to help pick it!
Part of the fun of Mountain View Orchards are the animals. The boys enjoyed looking at many different kinds of farm animals.
Meanwhile, we had gotten separated from our friends, Kristy and Kyle, but found them again. Kristy even found this clover!
We finished our picking, and the boys counted up our apples.
Simon lent his wagon to Kristy and Kyle who had picked about 50 pounds.
The boys gave Nathan his work out as we walked up the last hill toward the fruit stand to pay.
The fun day (combined with the fact that we had skipped nap time in order to go apple picking) had the boys quite tuckered. They both fell asleep on the car ride home. Simon was an absolute dirty mess. I snapped this picture of him when we were almost home.
Another great apple picking experience in the books!