The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I feel like every year I keep posting the same things, but every year I have my children's eyes to see things a little differently than the year before. Fall is by far the best season here in Michigan. Sometimes it's shorter than I would like, but this year has been good and it's supposed to continue to be a nice long fall because of the good temperatures. Mid-60s, on average, most days. Not much rain, but just enough.

As has been the case since we moved here 9 years ago, I took my preschooler on his field trip to the apple orchard with his preschool pals. We have two preschool groups from our ward this year, so we all got to go together. I guess the only downfall to autumn this year is that there were less bees in the spring because of some late cold weather, so there were less apples on the trees. That meant the kids couldn't pick their own apple from a tree, but had to pick it out from a bin of apples that had already been picked. Lucky for us, we have our own apple trees, so Erik picked one from our tree the other day. Less apples also means more expensive cider- $8.50 /gallon this year from the cider mills. At least it's not $10/gallon like it was 3 years ago. That was the winter/spring we went to France and had summer weather in March, followed by another freeze. It threw everything off!

Here's this years' pictures of the Plymouth Apple Orchard.

Erik brought the thermometer from the dr kit for some reason...

The four in the back are in his group. 

Anna, the only girl in both groups, and Victor, a friend we helped out that day because his mom had to stay home with a sick sister.

Pretending to be bees pollinating the apple tree.

The apple bins. I guess I didn't get a picture of the trees...

Wagon ride back to the play area.

New this year- hay bales to play on