We arrived to find rows and rows of apple trees, a big pumpkin patch, tons of activities for small children, and of course apple cider donuts! We started out at the petting zoo,
and Cassidy squealed and kicked her legs every time a baby goat would approach her as she sat in her stroller, leaning right up to the wire fence for licks. Next, we went on a hayride through the orchard, pulled by a big tractor. Erik was telling Cassidy about all 
the apple trees we were passing, and he asked her if she saw all the red apples. She responded with "app-o!!!" She's learning new words every day, and this was the perfect place to master that one! Once we got to the outer edge of the orchard, the hayride makes a u-turn through what they've named the "Enchanted Forest" - basically a setting of huge, old trees that form a big canopy over the trail, and they've adhered wooden cut-outs of all sorts of storybook characters to all the tree trunks as you pass them by. All the little kids on the ride where shouting out left and right to their parents, naming all the characters from the stories they knew. It was a fun ride! After the hayride, we had lunch and donuts - then off to the pony ride. At first we thought Cassidy might be too little for it, but we saw other little kids her age sitting on the ponies with a parent's help, so we decided to give it a try. I took pictures while Erik held Cassidy onto "Buttercup", her chosen pony. 
I don't think she quite knew what to make of it, but she seemed to enjoy herself!We tried a few times to get a nice family picture, but it seemed some of the folks spending the day at the orchard were, let's say, camera-challenged. We first tried with a nice man in line at the pony ride. We got all situated on some nearby hay bales, and got Cassie to look the right direction, and he counted down and said he got a great one! Come to find out a few minutes later that he actually didn't take a photo. So, onto the next nice lady who was just resting in a chair - she was happy to get up and take our picture, but she was holding the camera backwards - trying to find a viewfinder on the front of the camera. I got up and turned it around for her, trying to
kindly show her again where the button was - but when I sat back down, she flipped the camera backwards again. Eeeek, this was really becoming a lot of work for the orchard folks! We righted her once more and she eventually snapped a photo. The picture took - hooray! - but the 3 of us were over in a small corner of the shot, about 12 feet away - so much for centering! Thank goodness for photo cropping, what a great little tool. Anyway, here's the result! Certainly not our best, but pretty good given the circumstances. Erik and I had a good laugh after that lady made her way back to her resting spot...We visited the petting zoo once more before heading home. We came away with a big bag of honey crisp apples and some extra donuts, and have been enjoying them each day since. We're thinking we'll make the orchard an annual trip - maybe Apple Holler, maybe others - there seem to be a bunch out there in the far suburbs that had a lot to offer! And of course we love Edward's Orchard near my parents house in Rockford - we try to get there each year as well.
As I mentioned in my last post, I had not done a great job of taking pictures recently - so this week I kept the camera out and took some shots of Cassidy doing her day-to-day things. Now that the leaves are falling around our courtyard, she absolutely loves to toddle around and collect them, or even better, to sit down and have them piled all around her! She also really likes to play with the rocks that a few of our neighbors have around their trees. She takes them out one by one, then puts them back, usually trying to take a lick or two before I take them away. She is also really into wearing dress-up jewelry and playing with items from the kitchen. This picture is a typical afternoon for her, wearing her necklace and using wooden spoons and pots and pans as her drum set. She keeps us busy - we're having so much fun with her! Hope 
everyone is enjoying the start of fall...
