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Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Forget Pumpkin Spice, It's Apple Season!

Happy Wednesday! Since one of the very last posts I posted before my longer-than-intended hiatus was our Appel Happel outing, I thought it'd be fun to show this year's trip. Also, I cannot stand pumpkin spice and feel a little defensive when everyone is raving about pumpkin and forgetting about apple!

As I mentioned in last year's post, Appel Happel is an apple farm just about 20 minutes from our house. Last year, we attended the big apple picking festival they hold annually. This year, we didn't want to wait and wanted to spend our Labor Day Monday doing something fun with the kids. They truly enjoy picking their own food-it makes me think they'll be fantastic little farmers when I get back to the states and get some more room to plant! Even though the weather wasn't great (last year I remember sweating), we grabbed our jackets and headed out! We came home with a bag full of apples, THE BEST apple juice in the world (yeah, I said it, Motts) and some fresh, ripe tomatoes.

It was such a good time and we all love apples, so we may just end up back at the festival in a few weeks! Plus, they have all sorts of apple flavored goodies-it's basically heaven for me. And we can't forget the kids' favorite: chocolate covered apples!





Are you pro-pumpkin, apple all-the-way, or do you fall somewhere in the middle? I'd love to know!


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Monday, August 31, 2015

Summer Vacation: Part One

Hello, my name is Heather, and I am a horrible blogger. But honestly, how can I keep you up to date if we NEVER.STOP.MOVING?? That has been our life for the past few months: nonstop. Nonstop fun and travel and memory making; I wouldn't have it any other way! Well, today marks the first day of the school year, so I imagine that means a little less 'nonstop' and a little more time for catching up on here!

Just a brief recap of our summer (you're on your own for anything before that). We spent the first month of the summer at home in Virginia. One of my younger sister's getting married happened to coincide with our home leave, so we made it an event! I'm so glad we got to be there on her big day, and the wedding was beautiful. Plus, it was a chance for us to get all dolled up and dance! PJ definitely stole the show with his awesome dance moves, but I like to think the rest of us gave him a run for his money!



Our trip home was filled with family and friends, and LOTS of shopping. I may or may not have had to ship myself two big boxes of stuff. (psst...I did).  Seriously, I missed being able to hop in the car, seven days a week, at practically any hour and pick up something I need. Oh, and parking at the store you're trying to shop in-priceless. Drive-thru service...amazing. No language barrier? Yes, please. Overall, it was a great time.

While home, we also visited Busch Gardens near our house. We are no strangers to Busch, we usually held season passes every year; but this visit was a little extra special. The 'theme' for our Busch Gardens is Europe, so it was very cool to visit all these countries at the park, when we've been to almost all of them in real life now! We even ate dinner at the Festhaus in Germany! It was a little (over priced) slice of our new home. While we were standing in the Festhaus waiting to meet up with the rest of our party, I ran into an old friend from my neighborhood growing up. There was some squealing and she exclaimed,"What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be in Germany!" I personally thought it was hilarious, but it may be one of those things where you had to have been there.

We spent the entire month just being spoiled with great American comforts (and my parents), and catching up on things like HGTV and watching sports at normal hours of the day. We ate a LOT of good fast food, and introducing PJ to some of our American favorites. The kid will devour a schnitzel or some currywurst, but put some steak in front of him, and he's not interested. He did try Chickfil-A, but wasn't nearly as obsessed with it as the rest of us.

Since we were home for the Fourth of July, we got to catch the CW fireworks display-something we've missed these past few years. I will say, fireworks aren't nearly as exciting when you don't fear getting hit by them. We went fishing and dolphin watching, and to Jamestown too! It really was a great trip!



There is more about our summer vacation coming, but in an effort to not bore you to tears, I'll break it into more manageable installments! Stay tuned!

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