Time to Get Away

Sometimes it's good to get away. Sometimes you need a little fresh air, a little nature, and a little quiet time.  Sometimes you need an excuse to pull out your rugged boots and eat way too many ruffles chips while driving around for hours looking at all the beautiful fall foliage.       

Sometimes you need to forget your responsibilities, forget your worries and get outside to enjoy this beautiful earth that Heavenly Father created for us.

And sometimes you need to park your car and frolic through the fields of an old Shaker Village.

We had a lovely weekend!

A Fall New England Tradition

A little while ago Matt and I decided to take part in the great New England tradition of going apple picking.  We got up early, drove out to Stow Massachusetts and were welcomed by a lovely sign at Honey Pot Hill Orchards that said, "Welcome Apple Pickers".  It was awesome!

This was my first apple picking experience and we absolutely went to a great place.  They had hay rides, animals, apple cider donuts (Matt's favorite), and a cute little store full of produce and other fun things. 

The three little pigs were probably my favorite.  I couldn't get over how cute the little houses were.

As we headed into the orchards, I had only a few things on my mind.  I wanted Cortland apples for making pie and I wanted Golden Delicious apples for making apple sauce.  All other apples I was completely clueless about.  I'd never heard of pretty much any of the other apples they offered.  

Matt is a big apple eater and having done this pick your own thing before he was quick to make sure we could try out each and every kind.  We had so much fun going from tree to tree tasting the diffence between all the apples.  I had no idea apples could taste so completely different.  

 

Occasionally we would have to climb way up in the trees in order to get the apples.  They had the cutest wood ladders that I'll admit were super fun to climb. There was just something about climbing up to pick the apples that made the whole experience 10 times more fun.  

Apple picking was such a great experience.  It's a fall New England tradition that we'll be looking forward to year after year.  Now, on to the apple pies! :)

The Big E Fair

After saving all our change for quite some time we finally decided to dump our pig out, count up what was inside and spend, spend, spend.  We'd been waiting for a grand occasion to do this and the Big E Fair seemed like a perfectly good one.  

 

I absolutely love fairs and had been meaning to go to this one ever since I moved to Boston.  It's huge and counts as the state fair for Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine.  It was by far the biggest fair I have ever been to.  People were all over the place and the parking situation was unreal.

It had everything you could possibly want in a fair, including quilts and 4H projects, food vendors galore, people selling crazy things, elephant and camel rides, carnival rides, a circus, animals, free concerts and each state had it's own building where you could learn about why they were so great.  Here are some of the highlights.

Animals - this was fun and kind of gross at the same time. I say gross because watching a cow get milked by a machine is never fun, just trust me on that one. 

We did get to see this lovely goat though who posed and gave a little smile for the camera (too funny).  We also saw cows, horses, kangaroos, monkeys, elephants, and camels as well as sheep.   

We saw sheep getting a hair cut

And sheep that needed a hair cut  

By far our favorite part of the fair was the food of course.  The big E is known for two things, the Cream Puff and the Craz-E Burger. 

We are proud to say we tried them both.    

(Cream Puff - pretty self explanatory and really, really good)

(Craz-E Burger - a bacon cheese burger with a Krispy Kreme bun)

We weren't so sure at first, but after one bite we were sold.  It was delicious! So, so, so, so bad for you but delicious.   

Matt thoroughly enjoyed every last bite.

Also, one of the biggest highlights of my night was finding the TORTATO!!! Okay, so they call them millennium chips out here but it's pretty much the same thing. I was in heaven. 

The fair was exactly what we needed.  It was relaxing, fun and I think we ate enough to last us at least a week.  We watched a group of guys sing songs from the 60's, learned a lot about bees and how they make honey, tried out crazy work out machines that nearly shake you to death and even got to see a show of BMX tricks.  We can't wait to go back next year.  Maybe you should join us. :)

 



I Spent What?

We printed a few coupons, cut a few coupons, looked at where the sales were and headed to the store.  We got a ton of stuff but nothing was better than this sweet deal.  These six items would regularly be around $15 out here but all we had to pay was a measly $3.00! 

Matt and I were so excited about it that we were giving each other high fives in the checkout line and laughing like crazy.  People watching probably thought we'd just won the lottery or something.  So, a BIG THANK YOU to Kristin for inspiring us to clip coupons. 

I really think it might just be Matt's new favorite thing. It's a total game for him to see how many deals he can get us.  My new favorite thing . . . this video.  I watch it and can't help but want to start doing my own hand tap dance.  How cool would that be to do at a ward or family talent show? People would go nuts!