Apple and Pumpkin Picking

We had a brief day off from work in October and decided to take the kids to Willowbrook Apple Farm in Oak Glen. It's our 3rd year going, here's last year (you might remember my raving about seeing my couldabeen BFF Jennifer Garner the year i was preggo with HeaBug).

The crop was small this year and the trees are over a hundred years old so this year, we were given, um, fruit pickers (?) I don't really know what they are called and that's what came to mind. Whatevs.
We showed the kids how to use them and they still got to pick their own apples. We took pictures in the little grove. It's one of those places that we visit annually so I try to get a picture of them in the same or similar place to measure their growth. And to reminisce on how cutie patootie my bugs are.

There was a crazy line for apple cider so instead of making a gallon like we have in the past, we bought cups to drink and sat down on hay bales to enjoy our cider and caramel apples. We left Oak Glen with two large bags of Stayman Winesap Apples, lots of honey sticks, a piece of apple pie, apple butter and boysenberry jam.

On the way home, we decided to head to Tom's Farms in Temecula to visit their Pumpkin Patch. We've never been for pumpkins before and had only even visited the farm for the first time this summer (when we had Pexie with us). We knew that we were packed with work and might not have another weekend before Halloween to enjoy these "picking" activities.
We were actually pretty let down. The pumpkins were in rows on AstroTurf... Lame. We made the best of it and the kids had a lot of fun regardless. We always do when we are all together. Us B's know about having a good time! We ate at Tom's Farms and had strawberry shortcake for dessert. Another awesome Autumn day.