We made our annual excursion to Hood River this weekend to pick some apples. We figured out it was our 6th year in a row heading to Mountain View Orchards, which is an orchard on the fruit loop.
Our calendar gets filled up quickly these days so I blocked out the time over a month ago. We’ve had so many beautiful days for weeks on end, and of course Saturday morning we woke up to a hard rain. We weren’t discouraged, though. We packed up the rain boots and coats and headed off. It rained a lot of the way through the gorge, but once we got up to Hood River it was dry and dusty. While we didn’t get our blue skies and stunning views of Mt. Hood as we have in other years, it was still a perfect day for apple picking.
We started our time there with a picnic and some play time on the playground. I also made the boys stop and pose for a picture.
Then we suited up for apple picking. It was not muddy, but with all of the dust we still thought the boots were a good idea. The boys were very excited to put their boots on again. It had been a few months since they wore them.
Then we got right to apple picking. When we get to the apple trees the boys get really excited and want to pick every apple they see. We have to reteach them every year how to inspect apples before they pull them off the tree, and to wait for a bit…there is a whole orchard full of trees after all.
But it’s fun to see their excited faces with each apple.
Each of the boys picked an apple for their teacher at school. Elias also picked one for his music teacher. He delivered his two apples today and was very proud. We picked a bunch of apples to eat, and I told Nathan to pick me some Granny Smiths so I could make him some apple pie. He was quite excited, and would not let the boys help pick those apples.
Caleb couldn’t pick his own apples this year, but he was interested in what we were doing.
After we were finished picking apples we had to make a stop at the back of the orchard to see Carlos the steer and the other animals. We managed a family selfie with Carlos…no easy feat!
We made the short walk back to the fruit stand to purchase our picks, then let the boys dive in to the crisp deliciousness before heading home.
Then it was two hours in the car through torrential downpour to get home. It started raining at the orchard just as we were leaving. Perfect timing!
It was four hours in the car for two hours of family fun, but it was totally worth it! Another fun apple picking outing in the books.