You like apples, how 'bout these apple!

Today we went apple picking with our local twins group.  We headed to a great organic orchard in the Santa Cruz mountains that was perfect for a few hours of family fun.  The day before this adventure, I checked the weather to see what the picture prospects were going to be like (lame, I know, but I knew we were going to be there midday and I was hoping for a little forgiveness from the beating sun).  You can imagine my excitement when I saw that it might rain! After living in AZ, and now CA for the last several years, rain is a kind of a big deal.  It creates that feeling of coziness and sluggishness that snow days used to provide and that I kind of crave that feeling every once in awhile.  You know the kind of feeling I am talking about, the days where you want to make soup, bake cookies, and stay on the couch watching movies all day?!  I can't remember last time it rained here or the last time we got to be outside in the rain so I was excited to see that today may be our chance.  It was great to be outside in the cool air, running from tree to tree, picking as much fruit as the boys cold carry, and taking random bites of apples as quickly as they could.  They could not get enough of the whole experience and neither could I.

Last night, Chris and I told the boys that we were going apple picking today to try and get them excited for our adventure.  The boys have picked apples off Aunt Kathy's tree so they kind of knew what to expect and had a point of reference.  Brody and Brady must have said 'apple' 50 times before they went to sleep last night, and Brody said it again at 2 am when I went in to help him get back to sleep.  At the orchard both boys repeated 'apple' over and over, to every passerby, and to every adult and child that would listen.  Brody really enjoyed reaching high into the trees and grabbing for the fruit.  Brady loved plucking the apples off the tree but was confused by the water falling from the sky. I repeatedly had to tell him that it was rain and it was OK (a sign these boys need to see a bit more weather variety perhaps?!).  I guess we did not need to prepare them all that much because they were already super excited about going to pick apples.

The excitement continued after we got home.  Every time we said the word 'apple", Brody would reach his arms as high as he could, throw his head back, and mime picking fruit.  I hope this new behavior sticks around for awhile!   We had so much fun we are talking about going back in a few weeks!