APPLE PICKING!!!

I love this time of year because it means we can go apple picking!!  I used to do it with my Grandpa when I was a kid and it brings back such good memories.  The past two years we went to Lynd's outside of Columbus, but now with us living back in Cincy, we had to find a new orchard.  I was very disappointed to discover that all the farms near us had no u-pick apples this year due to a bad crop.  So I continued my search and it came down to two farms....the one we loved in Columbus or a new one outside of Louisville.  They were both about a 2 hour drive but Huber's in Louisville had a bit more to offer (um, a winery), so we opted to go there.  

We started on the road mid-morning and arrived around 11am.  Normally the kids would be wanting lunch soon so I figured apple picking would be the logical thing to do first.  Since you do end up eating apples along the way......

Fia LOVED this part!  I lost track of how many apples she munched on.

While this part was fun, it took longer than expected and Madeline got pretty cranky since she was hungry.  Getting these shots by the big apple WITH smiles was no small feat.

 

We finally made it to lunch around 1pm.  How beautiful is this?  They have a restaurant here but we opted for a picnic lunch by the lake.  Those are grape vines growing on the hill across the lake.

Once we were all full and happy again, we headed to the kids play area to feed the animals.

Then went down the giant mountain slide.  I'm glad I had a kid with me as an excuse to go down several times because this thing was F-U-N!

 

Madeline was our guide through the bamboo maze and she actually got us through.

She was obsessed with this talking tree inviting people into the market.

Before we left Mommy and Daddy had some of their homemade sangria and Madeline had some ice cream.  We also picked up one bottle of their homemade wine.  They have a loft where they do wine tastings too but we obviously didn't have time for that with the kids with us.  Maybe some other time.

Then Madeline wanted to be an ice cream cone.

Later that week I made Caramelized Apple Pork Chops with our freshly picked apples and we paired that with the wine we bought.  It was excellent!

We had a really great time but we both had mixed feelings about the place.  There was lots to do and you could definitely spend a whole day there.  Heck, we spent almost 5 hours!  But it was a bit too commercialized for our liking.  We like the smaller Mom-and-Pop farms.  So we'll see....we won't rule out ever coming back.