And for those of you wondering, this is why I’ll never publish that novel I keep saying I should write… because I never find time to practice the craft.  The thought of making time everyday to write is incredible… I’d enjoy it, but it’s just a little out of my reach these days.

Last Thursday, March 5, 2009, before heading to bed, Melodia and I were both up chatting.  One of her friends had posted pictures on Facebook of her and her family going to an indoor waterpark in Canada, Great Wolf Lodge, one of 11 locations it has in the states and Canada. The Canada location is in Niagara Falls, Canada, not far from where we live in Buffalo.  The beauty of it is that it’s a hotel, with an indoor waterpark attached.  And when you live somewhere that sees as much snow as we do in Buffalo, and temps in the 20s and 30s for 4 months… an indoor water-anything sounds really nice.

A similar thing exists about 2 hours southwest of us in Erie, PA.  It’s called Splash Lagoon.  I’d driven by it numerous times during the club volleyball season, as we play in several tournaments in Ohio, and one has to travel through Erie to get to Ohio, on the 90 thruway.

Well, we chatted about the waterpark idea that night, and about how much our kids love water, and (the kicker) that our Federal Tax refund had just deposited in our account earlier in the week.  A small thank you to Izzabelly here, because she, in part, helped us double our tax refund from last year.  Good job baby, earn us back some of that money you’re costing us. Now, I won’t stop and think too long on this one, or I might realize that whatever she “made” us was really “lost” to us within two months of her birth.

Nonetheless, we made the late night decision on Thursday to book a room at the waterpark in Erie or Niagara Falls depending on availability and price.  On Friday morning, while I was in class, Melodia was making the arrangements and packing.  Erie had a better deal, so we decided to head there.  In addition, our friend Danelle was coming up to pick up a visiting friend of hers at the airport, and graciously volunteered to take Izzy for the night so that we could make the trip with just Wil and McKinley.

I arrived home about 3:00 and we were in the car at 3:01.  Well, not quite, but close.

Two hours later, we were checked into the hotel and donning our bathing suits.  The fun the kids had was worth the price.  They spent the next two hours in the wading pool, and sliding down the wading pool slides, and riding on the lazy river with papi and mami. When time allowed, I let Melodia sneak away and she tried out four of the rides for herself… loved every second of it.  She offered to return the favor, but really, I was just having fun with our kids. 

The wading pool, except for the slides, was not unlike the pool we have right here 2 minutes from our apartment in West Seneca, NY.  We’ve posted pics of it before and they’re on our flickr account for sure, but a wading pool is worth it’s wait.  And in the summers, ours is free of charge… so it’s definitely worth the cost.

After pruning up really good at the splash lagoon pools, we returned to our apartment0-stye room.  It should be mentioned that the hotel is connected to the water park, and that it was like 200 feet from the elevator to the water park.  Good stuff.

The room was at the Residence Inn… I really love those setups, a total mini-apartment… kitchenette, L shaped couch, fireplace, queen bed, and ours had the spa tub.  We found that to be somewhat ironic, given the waterpark, but liked it nonetheless… I mean, how can one not like a spa tub?

The kids slept good Friday night.  We hit breakfast around 8am, as the water park opens at 9am, and we were back in the water as one of the first few people there. Day two was similar to day one, except, we had brought the kids’ lifejackets, and McKinley wanted to wear hers for a while.  So she did.

The highlight of day two came with Wil asking to ride one of the big water slides (the big orange one in the background of the picture of Mami and McKinley below). Mami took him up there, nervously wondering how he’d do. The park has several smaller slides that kids of any size are allowed to ride, and several rides that have a height requirement.  There are also tube rides and body only rides.  And on all body rides, there’s no doubling up — that means that Wil would have to go alone, he couldn’t ride with Mami.

I was nervous below, as Wil waited in line.  See, Wil’s spent a lot of time in water, but he doesn’t have that hold his breath thing down.  When they did the water slides on the wading pool, I played catcher.  Wil’s first trip down the wading pool slide, we let him land himself… well, he missed sticking his feet on bottom, went under and came up coughing, fearing drowning.  I snagged him out of the water quickly, but I know how scary that near-drowning feeling is.  So I spent the rest of the time “catching” him at the bottom, teaching him to land with his feet, but making sure he wouldn’t slip and go under again.

Now, here he was wanting to try a big slide.  These slides all end in a straight half-tube filled about 6 inches deep, that cause a splash and sometimes send water up into one’s face, etc. So it wasn’t the going down part I worried about, but the arriving at the end.

I moved as close as I could to the landing “zone” stepping over some artificial plants so I could snatch him quick when he hit the deeper part.

And finally, Wil’s turn was up.  Mami waved down and I gave her the thumbs up.  What followed was about 20 seconds of waiting and wondering.  Was he still in a sitting position? If he’d slipped back into a lying position, water might be spraying his face the whole way down, and he’d feel like he was drowning. Was he having the fun he thought he’d have, or scared and wanting it to be over? Curly Q after curly Q, turn after turn, he was coming down.

Finally, I her the whoosh of him around the last turn above my head. A few seconds later, he appeared in the landing shoot, still sitting up and smiling.  He hit the 6-inch deep section and, light as he is, caused barely a splash.

I grabbed him up, relieved that my son had survived this water right of passage.  He smiled at me and said what I expect every kid who’s just accomplished such a feat, “Papi, can I do it again?”

“Of course, good job, son.” Mark this as one of those proud moments of mami and papi, their son’s first big waterslide run.

After two hours at the park, we checked out of the hotel (1130am checkout time, or we might have stayed longer).   We hit target for a toy run… every other week or so, we’ll take the kids to the toy store and let them pick something out — this being our vacation, albeit overnight, we wanted them to have what is always a treat to them… a new toy.

So we shopped at Target and they each selected something to play with.  After that, we hit lunch at the Old Country Buffet. The kids brought their new toys in with them, a matchbox dinosaur for Wil and a sport little people car for McKinley.  We loaded up on the good eats and then headed for our next stop on the journey, the Erie Zoo.

Now, I’ve probably mentioned this before, but to bring you up to speed, Melodia and I annually purchase a family membership at our local (Buffalo) zoo.  It costs $100, and we’ve done it every year that we’ve lived here.  We used to live 5 minutes from it, though we’re now 22 minutes away. But we see the zoo as an expense that worth it, and we don’t mind supporting the zoo with our money.

One of the benefits of zoo membership is that there are reciprocal agreements with about 100 zoos; many allow you to use your zoo membership to get in free at their zoo, and some offer a discounted rate.  The Erie Zoo is free under this agreement.  Melodia and I make every opportunity to hit a new zoo when we can, and we hadn’t yet been to the Erie Zoo.

(As an aside, we’re thinking that one of these summers, we will do a road trip, and schedule as many zoos as we can — some people go to stadiums, some to historical sites or national parks, and while we might do those on another summer, we’ll certainly do the zoo’s one summer).

It was raining off and on all day, but the air temp was in the 50s, so it made for an uncrowded Saturday at the zoo. It only took about 10 minutes inside the Erie Zoo for Melodia to exclaim something we’ve both uttered before, “Why is every zoo better than ours?” lol. I hate to knock our Buffalo Zoo – we’ve spent many wonderful days there… but look, call it like it is… that’s what I’ve always done.

Buff zoo’s biggest problem — look, make it easy to get places.  I hate it when a zoo acts like an amusement park and causes patrons to walk long, winding paths in wide out of the way circles to get to the next viewpoint. I mean seriously, straight lines, connect it all, let the customer decide which way they want to go.

The zoo’s other problem (and most zoos have it, too), contour.  Yeah, I’m a hiker, I like up and downs, give us some of that.  Flat is flat.

Third issue, no water.  Look, I wish every zookeeper in America would read this paragraph… put water for kids in your zoo.  It’s simple, and it adds value.  Add a wading pool (the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester has one, and though smaller than the Buffalo Zoo, you guessed it, we consider it better, too).  Add some spouts that shoot water up in the air for the kids to stand in or run through (Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa has it).  Just add water.

The Erie Zoo has quite an elevation gain to it, and it makes for a wonderful viewing experience, and some enjoyable walking.

In addition, it has a river flowing through it… again, it’s that water thing.  It’s not just the hiker in me or some weird spiritual axiom like “water connects us all.”  It just is what it is. Water soothes the soul.  Ok, there’s your axiom.  The sound relaxes us.  The site soothes us.  Our worries are snatched up and carried downstream for the moment, and we’re left there without them, to enjoy the rippling of the water.

The kids had a blast at this zoo, and so did we.  And as we often do when we visit zoos, part of our support the zoo philosophy above, we stopped in at the gift shop at the end.  Even at our zoo, beyond our membership, we don’t mind stopping occasionally in the gift shop to purchase some overpriced toy for the kids.

We’re happy to give the zoo that money.  Our patronage, especially at away zoos (most of which are free to us on our zoo pass) is like our tip.  And the Erie Park Zoo definitely earned our tip on this one.  They’ve put together quite the displays of animals, and made this zoo a place where kids can really enjoy themselves.  Ours sure did.

We were also excited to see Red Pandas there. Our little zoo in Chattanooga, TN (when we lived there), formerly called the Warner Park Zoo, had as its premier exibit, Red Pandas.  So we were excited to see them again, and it brought back nostalgic rememberings of that small zoo tucked away in the city of Chattanooga – also worth a visit.

So we hit the gift shop. The kids selected a couple of stuffed monkeys with valcro hands, and with their purchase, we headed out.

We drove to Danelle’s house, 45 minutes from Erie to Jamestown, NY, picked up Izzabelle from her overnight at the Padd’s, and headed home happy.

It was a wonderful one-day vacation, we packed it full, enjoyed ourselves to the max, and were completely exhausted when we arrived home.  So much so that it took all of Sunday for us to recuperate. But you know, this was one of those days that you cannot put a price on – time with family, whether in a zoo or in your backyard, is priceless, and we thanked God in the car on the way home for the privilege of that day, and of enjoying  time together.

We headed down to [...]]]> Whew!  It’s been forever since we posted.  We continue to use the ol’ real life + 3 kids + facebook time = little time to worry about the blog.  Lately, we’ve been letting facebook keep our family updated. But I’ll try to take a few minutes to recap the Thanksgiving break.

We headed down to Adam and Danelle Padd’s in Bemus Point (near Jamestown), NY on Thanksgiving morning. We’ve spent the last 3 Thanksgivings with them at their place and it’s been quite fun.  We also bought 4 acres just up the road from their 27-acre place this last summer, and are thinking about building a small cabin there next spring/summer so that we can continue to enjoy weekends near them and/or even move there.

The nice (ok, this depends on your personality) thing about where they live is that their area gets even more lake effect snow than Buffalo (ours).  They had about 1.5 to 2 feet on the ground when we arrived.  We can still see grass up here.  I much prefer to be somewhere the winter’s white.

I’m not sure if it’s the whole global warming thing, or a product of where we live, or a child’s memory… but I grew up in Harrison, Michigan, with a nice size sledding hill across the street, out in the country, and it seems that once the snow started about mid-Nov to December, we had snow on the ground until early April. Our snow up here, at least in the Buffalo area, seems to come and go, big lake effect blocks of snow, then bare grass on the ground for a couple weeks.

Now me, I prefer the snow.  It makes a winter. Look, if I’m going to be somewhere cold, then I’d rather have a blanket of white on the ground.  In addition to making winter, it also brightens the sky’s gray up a bit, and on the whole, just makes my mood a little more cheery… causing me to reach for the ipod and click on the Christmas playlist.

But I’ve digressed, what I was saying before that little sidebar is that we arrived to much snow, which completely pleased the kids, and Wil made sure he was out in it with Zechariah in no time.

Thursday lunch was great and the day was just relaxing.  Of course, I say that, but I have to give a hand to Danelle, her mom, and Melodia who really put some time in with food preparation.  Their gracious work allowed for a really peaceful and joyous time of sharing and reacquainting ourselves with the happenings in each others’ lives.

At night, after we put the kids to bed, we pulled out a boardgame we had brought to play with them, “Trailer Park Wars.“  We had a good time with it, even if the girls did gang up on us and usher in a win for Melodia.

We spent the night at their house – as we have often done in the past.  Wil and McKinley were great, and Izzabelle? I think she wanted to just sleep the whole trip away.  Wil surely enjoyed having Zechariah to play with, and another boy was there as well, albeit a little bit older, Matthew.

In the morning, the kids were up early, but our hosts graciously watched the kids and let Melodia and I sleep in a bit longer. Hey, we’ll take it wherever we can get it!  Sleep seems a lost commodity these days.

Once up, all the boys were talking sledding.  The girls had decided to stay in and make some Christmas ornaments with the bulbs, paint, and other supplies Melodia had brought. McKinley sided with the boys at the thought of going outside in the snow – she hadn’t previously made it outside on Thursday, so she was itching to go.

So we loaded up, Adam and Zechariah, John (Adam’s cousin) and his son, Matthew, and myself with Wil and McKinley, and headed over to a hill 5 minutes from their house.  We arrived as the first group, but we quickly got up to about 5 groups – most of whom were the Padd Families friends.

The kids loved sledding.  This was their first “true” sledding experience beyond two years of Papi’s preparing them by pulling them around in our purple, “Kiddie Boggin’” sled.  But having an actual hill to go down really fast, and then walk back up – well, Wil walked up a few times; I pulled McKinley back up in the sled every time, and Wil at least a half dozen times with her! lol.

Papi was excited to get sledding again.  I grew up on this.  And it is exactly the sort of thing I’ve wanted my kids to be able to experience with the snow. Now only if I could get Mami out in it.

But — sort of sidebar here — I did finally do something I should have done 3.5 years ago when we moved here. On Saturday, we went out shopping to pick up some necessities from Target and then a couple things from the mall. While at the mall, I went into Dick’s to buy a new sled (we’d borrowed one of Adam’s).  Once there, I thought, you know, it’s about time to just do this right.  So we went over to the snow gear section and bought mami the full gear (and if you know anything about snow gear, pants, jackets, etc., you know it takes a bit of $$ to outfit a person in some good waterproof gear.

We spent about 2 hours at Dick’s trying it all on for the right fit, and I made sure she bought everything she needed despite her concern over cost.  I wanted her to feel prepared for going out into the snow with her kids in the future.   So, we picked out the red waterproof pants, which led to the black waterproof jacket with gray zip out fleece liner, then to the white, down, quilt-stitched vest for under the jacket, then to a set of new waterproof gloves, and what the heck, why not a new beanie (with ear flaps) for a cute way of topping it off?!  Good stuff.

I walked away feeling good about helping Dick’s bottom line there and wondering why I hadn’t done that sooner, for Melodia’s comfort and fun.  Now I just need to buy her a couple more sets of quality under garments (smart wool) and some new snow boots, and she’ll have it all.  Me?  I’ll still be wearing my Jeans, rubber boots, down puffy jacket, beanie and leather gloves. The scarf keeps me warm. LOL.  Besides, I’ve put on a few pounds, so I can weather the outdoors a little better.

But, rest assured, after seeing how good she looked, and knowing how good our kids look in their snow gear, I was starting to feel the itch for some new gear for Papi!  Course, that’s a few paychecks away!

Sidebar over — It was a super fun time sledding with the kids, and I only hope to be doing it again soon, with Mami present and having lots of pics of her enjoying it too.  Only issue is, who’s watching Izzabelle while we’re zooming down the hills?  Any takers?!

Cool thing is, Izzabelle is getting bigger all the time, and not just bigger, but starting to become a little “person.” She’s really able to push and hold her head up for longer periods when she’s on her tummy; and she reacts to us a lot more these days… all smiles, of course!

Well, that about sums up Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the Wilsons.  Happy Thanksgiving, now onto a Merry Christmas!

Mami left for a retreat tonight (Fri, 11/14).  It was a warm day today, around 60… warm for November in Buffalo. So I put the kids in their mudboots and we headed out in search of puddles!

The kids love wearing their mudboots and doing some puddle walking.  Of course, they love [...]]]>

Mami left for a retreat tonight (Fri, 11/14).  It was a warm day today, around 60… warm for November in Buffalo. So I put the kids in their mudboots and we headed out in search of puddles!

The kids love wearing their mudboots and doing some puddle walking.  Of course, they love splashing and stomping, too.  It took about 32.4 seconds for McKinley to splash her pants soaked.  We were loading Mami up when we first went out, and Melodia was a little frustrated with their ability to stomp themselves wet.  But you know, as I thought about it, what’s the big deal?

I remember my parents not wanting us to splash and soak our clothes.  I mean, what’s the big deal? Look if you’re heading to puddles, getting wet comes with the territory.

Now, I should warn, the kids got sick about two nights ago, and last night passed it onto me; so all 3 of us are sick with sniffles and sore throats right now.  But, it was warm, and a little outdoor mudpuddle time is a nice relief.

So in the end, I’m left thinking, you know what kids, go ahead. Stomp away.  Get wet.  It’ll wash. It’ll dry.  It’s not a big deal.  Let’s just have some fun.

After Melodia left, I put Wil and McKinley in the car and drove down the road by the volleyball facility.  It’s on a dead-end road that runs into some wetlands.  I knew there’d be a nice, big puddle down there, and there was.  The kids enjoyed their time there.

In a smaller, isolated puddle, Wil suddenly stopped and pointed, “look, Papi, a worm.”  I swear, if there’s a worm within 30 feet of this kid, he’ll find it!  And he LOVES worms.  He found at least four this summer under the same tree.  Little buggers are one-hour, all-inclusive, Wil-musement parks.

So there in the bottom of the puddle is a drowning worm.  Actually, we must have come along at just the right time.  Wil pulled him out, and he was still alive. So Wil held and held him for the next 10 minutes.   Then I managed to convince him to let the worm return to his worm house.  So Wil set him down in the grass, and i wrangled he and McKinley into the truck to head home, dry off, and warm up. Good fun. But seriously, Wil and worms, hilarious.  Where there’s a Wil, there’s a worm.

We spent several solid hours picking [...]]]> This morning we headed out for apple picking: part deux (2).  We’d made a plan with Adam and Danelle to meet at our property around 1030am to pick apples and had set up a 4pm appointment at the Cider Mill in Busti to have our apples turned into cider.

We spent several solid hours picking apples.  Of course, Wil and McKinley picked about 4 apples each, then spent the rest of the time in the cab or bed of the truck, playing with Zechariah.  I found a caterpillar early in the morning, and I kid you not, Wil kept that caterpillar all day. Talk about a cheap toy! (not that life is cheap).

Needless to say, it was the adults who were doing the majority of the work.  Adam drove his truck back into our 30 acres, and we’d back the truck right up to a tree, set one ladder up in the bed of the truck and go to picking.

Danelle and Melodia spent a good chunk of the day together working separate trees from Adam and I.  They were plugging along on one a couple hundred feet away from (and out-of-site) of the truck when Danelle fell off the ladder.

Luckily, a few scratches, a headache, and some pride were the only damages.  Apple picking is a dangerous business folks; don’t try this at home.

We filled about 8 bins with apples, then had lunch on the property in Adam and Danelle’s RV Camper.  They brought it out to leave at the property for a bit.  It was a relaxing lunch.  We then snapped a photo of our two families together, and headed off to the Busti Cider Mill.

The Mill’s a good hour from our 30 acres, so Wil, McKinley, and Izzabelle all slept on the way.  Melodia and I wondered how much cider we’d get.  10 gallons?  13 if we were lucky?

Well, at this point, let me throw out some facts since most of you are probably wondering how much cider we got.  1 bushel of apples usually results in about 3 gallons of cider.  As we were loading the apples onto the washer/conveyor belt, we asked the operator about how many bushels he thought we had. We’d filled big plastic bins, not true bushel baskets, and from the looks of the comparison, our bins appeared to be about 1.25 to 1.5 bushels.

After the last apple headed up the conveyor belt, he estimated we had 14 bushels of apples. Now, at this point, we still didn’t know that whole thing about 1 bushel equalling 3 gallons and by extension 14 bushels would equal 42 gallons.

We headed up the stairs to watch the mill operator and see the skinny on cider making.  After being rinsed, chopped and mashed, the apples (now mush) fall(s) down a chute.  The operator places the mush onto a large cheesecloth-like material which is sitting on a pallet.  He then wraps the mush and lifts the pallet aside, and repeats the process, stacking several layers of apple mush on each other.

Then comes the press.  Large metal weights are freed up which lower a block onto the stacked pallets of mush, and the cider begins to ooze out  of them.  That cider flows through a set of tubing into an ultraviolet light setup designed to kill any organizisms which might have been in the apple flesh or liquid.

The liquid is further strained as it drains out and into a holding tank.  Down below this room is a series of pvc tubing connected to the holding tank.

The cider mill supplies the gallon jugs and lids for $1.60 per gallon of cider made. Individuals can also supply their own jugs and pay only $0.80 for each gallon made.  Adam and Danelle had managed to secure a dozen or so jugs, so we figured that would save greatly on our costs.

In the room below the holding tank, then (on the ground floor), we started filling the jugs at these pvc cider spickets.  Gallon after gallon flowed until I figured we were close to empty.  I mean, at this point, we had 14 gallons. More than we’d expected.

That’s when we asked the mill operator what the tank looked like.  “Oh, you’ve a ways to go,” he said.   So we kept filling… and filling… and filling… until… 51 gallons later, the last drop of cider flowed out.

51 gallons of cider!  Whew!  Now, interestingly, this was just from the apples we picked over 3 hours time.  And by our estimates, we had only taken about 1/5th of the apples on our 30-acre property!  So we’ve probably got up to another 200 gallons we could make, if we wanted.

As part of our sharing with the Padd’s, we split the $68 cost for the 51 gallons of cider. Yep, only $68 bucks for all that cider.  (The going rate, by the way is between $4.50 and $6.50 to buy a gallon of cider either at the mill or at a local grocery store!).

We gave Adam and Danelle half the cider to share with their friends and family.  It was quite exciting to stand there at the truck, all loaded up to head home, and see the fruits (or cider, 26 gallons) of our labor. What a wonderful outing and fun experience with our friends.

From there, we decided to drive straight to our church (the Busti Mill is about 1.5 hours from our apartment in Buffalo).  The church has a lecture series going on right now with a guest speaker, four nights of good stuff.  It started at 7pm and the GPS showed a 710pm arrival.  This was the only night that we weren’t planning on going, though we’d wanted to, because we figured not to be home in time. But, since Trixie (our affectionate name for our GPS, because you HAVE to name your GPS) said we could make it by 710pm, we decided to go for it.

The church is having a Harvest Festival at the end of October and is looking for all kinds of donations.  After the lecture series, we brought in our donation, several gallons of fresh cider.  I figured we’d gotten 51 gallons, why not truly tithe (10%) of our first fruits, so we gave the church 6 gallons. And of course, a gallon for the pastor and his wife.  It’s so awesome to be able to share this, and to think, that this came from our property.

Cider only lasts a week or two in the fridge, and then it gets “fizzy” (that’s the technical term for the process of fermentation that causes the cider to start to move the direction of alcohol). So, in order to get it to last longer, common practice is to freeze it.

We’re not sure what we’re giving away just yet.  We made our list, but we also wanted to make sure that we’d have cider through Christmas (we figured 10 gallons for us… 1 gallon/per week, yes Christmas is only 10 weeks away) would just about do it.  Fresh cider at Christmas, warmed on the oven, filling the house with that cider smell… mmm… bring it on.

So we chucked two gallons in the fridge for immediate drinking and put the other 16 in our upright freezer.  But if we’re saving 10, that doesn’t leave many more to give away.  (We’ve already given our apartment maintenance guy a gallon).  This and some of our conversations at the mill and in the car on the way home has got me thinking about going out there again later this week, and picking some more apples

This year has been a bumper year. Apples run in two-year cycles, so next year won’t be so cider-heavy.  I figure, it wouldn’t be too hard to pick another 51 gallons worth of cider.

Isn’t that just crazy?  I’m sure we’d find enough people to share it with.

Today was our first-ever experience making apple cider, and it was wonderful.

These are the kinds of homesteading experiences we love sharing with our kids.

p.s. for all the pictures, check out our flickr

Here’s one of the toys Wil did a photoshoot for about 5 months ago.  Yeah, one of [...]]]> The Fisher Price catalogue arrived in the mail this afternoon.  The kids were both sleeping so I browsed it, ever on the lookout to see if one of Wil or McKinley’s photo shoots was chosen.  Again, no such luck.

Here’s one of the toys Wil did a photoshoot for about 5 months ago.  Yeah, one of his shots should have been used.  But I’m biased.

Wil had another shoot this week.  Melodia took him.  Wil’s at a great age now to do these well.  Melodia said he was great.  But there was a problem.  It was a partner shoot.  Wil’s first.  And the other little boy, apparently he wasn’t so good at it.  Ugh!  It was for a power wheels toy.  Seriously, why didn’t they use brother and sister?  McKinley and Wil together would have done it awesome.  As it is, our kid’s shoot ends up in the tank because some other kid can’t pull his weight!  Do I sound like one of those crazy modeling parents yet?

We should work to try to get our kids in the modeling circuit.  Maybe they could pay our way! LOL.  But, we likely won’t.  We do the Fisher Price thing because it’s here; and it works into our life.

So… the catalogue.  I laid down for a cat-nap, and was later awoken by Wil and McKinley as they walked in proudly with the catalogue to show me which toys they wanted.  Got to love these little toy shoppers.

Wil’s choice is Handy Manny.  McKinley’s is a doll house.  Melodia and I have been wanting to get her one for some time now.  We haven’t yet.  We both liked the look of this one, too.

I have it in my brain that perhaps we should get the house for Christmas, and farm out the “room sets” to our friends and family to get her for Christmas, as well… sort of a “sponsor a room” for McKinley’s doll house.  That sounds cool doesn’t it?  Maybe we could label each room in honor of you all… for example, “The Titi Shani Bedroom” or the “Lala Kitchen.”  Huh?  Catchy!

You can see this page in the online catalogue here.  If you click on the sets (I know they’re small in the pic, the website will redirect you to the page for that set so you can see them closeup).

I haven’t run that one by Melodia yet.  But that’s the marketer in me, always looking for sponsorships!

And we may not decide to go with this exact dollhouse.  Some of the reviews say it’s a bit small, and we really want something she can grow into.  But I love the “sponsor a room in McKinley’s dollhouse” idea!

The kids are in bed now.  They had a great day and went to bed with ease.  They spent some time playing at the park today.  Our Buffalo forecast is 4 days of solid sun and high 60s, so we’re making the most of some late summer-like days for the kids.

They ran and ran.  Melodia texted me from the park (I was in class) about how wonderful it was to sit on the bench and watch McKinley and Wil play with their “new friends” (as they call them, i.e., the other kids at the park.

The high slide is way up there, but Wil and McKinley climb the steps without fear.  To give you perspective, look at the picture to  the right.  McKinley is on the slide in the picture.  That little dot is her head.  I mean, this thing’s like 3 stories tall! 20′ off the ground.  What fun to watch.

Melodia is at her bowling league now, the kids are in bed, and I’m signing off.

Papi buys the bulk boxes from Sam’s Club, and has them in the house.  Their just within the kids reach and all the time, they ask to eat Slim Jims.

Yep, they’re Wilsons all right!

Some history… on Friday night, our friends Adam and Danelle took their camper to our 30 acre property to camp out for the night.  While there, they noticed that our 10-12 wild apple trees were overloaded [...]]]> On Tuesday, since I had the day off, we decided to do something we haven’t done before.  Apple picking.

Some history… on Friday night, our friends Adam and Danelle took their camper to our 30 acre property to camp out for the night.  While there, they noticed that our 10-12 wild apple trees were overloaded and dropping fruit.  They suggested we all get together to pick them and take them to the cider mill for pressing.  Since the upcoming weekend is a 3-day weekend, that would be a good time.  Danelle was also going to the mill the next day as a homeschool field trip, and so she was going to get all the info on it for us.

This sounded great.  Too great, in fact, for Lonni of little patience to wait.  LOL.  I figured, why not get the kids out of the house for a little while.  We hadn’t been out to the property in a bit, so I thought it might be nice.  Plus, Melodia and I have been talking about needing to get a family pic soon, so I figured I’d take the camera and tripod and we’d take a family pic in the country.

Well, we loaded up everything for apple picking, the ladder, buckets and bins, a saw, coats, hats and mud boots (something we get good use out of whenever we’re out in the country). On the way out, we stopped off at Dunkin’ Donuts to get the kids a little after breakfast snack.

Driving onto our property, we realized how little time we’d spent there this summer.  It is so overgrown (I didn’t have it brushhogged this summer), and the driveway has lots of weeds needing pulled. LOL.

We headed back toward a couple of our apple trees that are nearer the front of the property. First thing we did was to walk through the woods to the back side of the property and take a few family pictures. I think they turned out all right – albeit a little bright because, though it was a 57-degree day (fall, cool and crisp), it was bright and sunny.

After the pics, we set to apple picking.  The kids had a blast.  McKinley sat in the wagon we brought and played “cup-bearer” for us, checking to ensure that the apples were good quality.  That little stinker.  She’d take three bites out of one, then try another.  Apple-eating fiend.

Wil got into it.  He liked having his own bucket.  Most of the apples were a little too high for him to reach, so I took it slow by picking a couple, then handing them down to Wil to place in the bucket.  We moved through three different trees picking apples.

Halfway through, McKinley decided to chill in the truck and sat playing in the front seat as we picked.  Izzabelle slept most of the time.  Mami had her in the front carrier, so she was picking with Mami for part of it, then we put her back into the truck to rest.

I spent most of the time on the ladder trying to get the higher up apples.  Our trees are wild on the property. As such, they’re not sprayed with pesticides. So not all the apples are prime looking, actually, ours would be considered “seconds”  (or even thirds), i.e., apples destined to be cider.

Plus, having waited so long after when they should have been picked, the ground was loaded with them.  As an aside, last weekend (i.e., the first weekend in October) was the apple festival in Forestville (the little community where our 30 acres is located).  We didn’t make it out there.  But our area features and abundance of apple trees and apple growers.

Despite their “wild” look, our apples sure were tasty.  Wil snacked often, and made sure to grab “one for the road.”

After finishing, we drove down to Adam and Danelle’s place to have dinner with them and Melodia and Danelle had planned to make Apple Fritters with some of our bounty.  Prior to dinner, I swear Wil polished off three more apples.  Those kids like apples!  While we were there, Adam’s aunt stopped by with some apple cider! Yummy!

The girls cooked up Apple Fritters, a few at a time, tweaking the recipe with each new set of 5 they dropped into the hot oil.  After about 4 or 5 different versions, they arrived at the taste they liked best. But we were eating and “testing” them the whole way.  McKinley wasn’t so much interested in them, but Wil was more than happy to offer his tasting services the whole time.

Apple Fritters – yummy.

We left the Padd’s place about 815pm, heading home. On the whole, we both felt that this was one of the most fulfilling days we’d had with the kids in a while.  Just something romantically fun about picking apples in the fall, making fritters, and drinking cider.

Next up:  We’re going back to the property to pick more apples this coming Monday (holiday) with Adam and Danelle, and going to the mill Monday or Tuesday to make cider from them.  Expect another “yummy” posting.