appuhs!

i know it's kinda city slickers, but when our neighbor friends invited us to caravan out to a u-pick apple farm in yucaipa, i jumped at the chance. true to my so cal roots, i have a love of the fall season incommensurate with experience.

i'd been talking up the trip all week, so violet was excited to go to the appuh fahm with her friend viv. violet was especially thrilled when the "big girls" (viv's sister stella and her pal phoebe) wanted to ride in our car. violet turned an episode of diego on her kindle, and the preteens squealed. as it turns out, the kid who is the current voice of diego is a member of their middle-school cafeteria posse. OMG! if only violet could understand there's only one degree of separation between her and her first celebrity crush! oh the hours i would while away, dreaming of meeting mikey from goonies, how he would be my date to my first school dance, how we would kiss with our lips closed so that our braces wouldn't get stuck together. the other night kevin actually used the words "looks like sean astin" to call someone ugly! i gave him a one-way ticket up troy's bucket.

back on the trail

violet thoughtfully considered which apples she wanted to bring home, take one bite of, and regurgitate into my hand.

as a book in our daily rotation says, "no biting our friends! what do we bite?"

does this look like a child who prefers the taste of human flesh? at least i know which side of the family she gets her carnivorous bent from.

once we'd collected our bounty, we headed to a general store where the apples cost less per pound than the ones we'd just hauled down the dusty trail (and by "we" i mean kevin).

violet's favorite things were taste-testing the fresh-pressed ciders - "i yike goose now" says the juice snob - and sprinting up and down the aisles of glass collectibles. she also really liked this hat, but we ain't moving to echo park, kid.

since i know how much kevin loves to sacrifice his sunday mornings during football season - almost as much as viv's dad paddy - i'm pretty sure we'll be making this an annual tradition. cheese!