Apple Town!

We went apple-picking! It was great. Kathleen, the stage manager, drove us up to the Ricker Hill farms, where we stopped in at the store for delicious homemade pumpkin doughnuts and a bag to be filled with 10 lb of apples. We also explored the corn maze, which Tony figured out on the first try. Then we went out to the orchards! Where there were apple slings, which were fun!

Also, there were apples, of course. The apples were enormous and sweet - I don't even really like apples, but there were some delicious ones that I had several bites of and enjoyed a lot - and we had a lovely time wandering through the orchards, although the signs were sometimes confusing.

We also found a discarded pre-paid ten pound bag sitting on the ground, and we naturally couldn't let it go to waste... so in the end we came home with twenty pounds of apples! They are still not quite gone, although we have been eating plenty of apple cake and apple cookies and apple fritter! Actually, I take that back. I think they are gone as of today - two weeks after we went picking.

On the 25th, which was Alex's and my one-year anniversary, Nikki's parents came to visit, and they took us out to lunch at Da Vinci's, a super delicious Italian restaurant - I ordered some fancy and excellent ravioli - after Alex, Nikki, Tony, and I had explored AppleFest in the morning. AppleFest happens once a year in Monmouth, and is very cute. There are booths selling apples, of course, and the old corn processing building is open, as are the two Monmouth museums, and also there is a scarecrow contest! We did not have time to build our own scarecrows, but we did have time to pick favorites!