I promised pictures, and here they are!

We only spent about two hours at the orchard, but we still harvested at least 100 pounds of apples (especially if you count the apples we ate). It was a gorgeous day, a sunny fall afternoon, perfect for running around an orchard. There were several local homeschooling families there we knew. Amira was thrilled to see some of their friends from homeschool PE.

I had something really funny happen. While I was talking to two other PE moms, a third was looking furtively at me and talking to someone else. She was trying to decide whether or not to speak up. You see, she recognized me and our family from my blog! Someone had passed on the url to her some time back because I was pregnant and homeschooling. She was excited to see Yasmina up close (she is a doula also). She wasn't sure whether she should say anything, though, because she didn't want to seem like a stalker.

I told her that she would only seem like a stalker if her entire reason for coming that day was to see me because she'd read about it here. Since I hadn't mentioned our going anywhere online, it would have been pretty hard to accomplish that. So, hello Sheila! (Boy, I hope I remembered your name!) And my menus this week are real! I will tell you if I change them, so you can maintain your faith in the internets. I think this is the first person I've run into who reads my blog and doesn't know me.

Here we are heading home from our lovely day. I think it is also the first time since having Yasmina that we were all in the same photo. This is the closest to normal we can all look at the same time.
It was one of three pictures taken. Jerome is scowling in it. There was one picture in which he looked pretty content, but the rest of us looked crazed and annoyed. He was upset because he wanted to be eating an apple. You know other than the seven in front of him that had his teeth marks in them and large bites taken out. The other apple. And that other one. This is completely logical and makes all kinds of sense. It's nice to be two.














I'll make up for posting a picture of Jerome looking so awful. Here he is the day before our trip to the orchard, playing with his father's beekeeping veil and hat.



So yesterday morning, I made apple waffles with some of the apples we picked. This is the first in a lot of apple cookery that will be happening here in the Arabian Knits home. Stay tuned for news of applesauce, apple pies, apple cakes, apple muffins, apple fritters, apple crumbles, apple turnovers and maybe apple butter, apple jelly and apple syrup if I can get my act together. I doubled the waffle recipe, used melted butter instead of oil, replaced the plain sugar with cinnamon sugar and served them with butter and cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top. With fried eggs from our chickens on the side. And fresh raw milk from Lilah the Brown Swiss cow. We have a good life.

One other thing made it even better. We received a phone call from Deacon Michael as we were getting ready to leave, and he said he has a move date for coming up here and the official announcement was made for his ordination to the priesthood, which is the first Sunday of Advent. The new year of the Church will begin with us having a priest again. Thank you Lord!

Labels: Family, Homeschooling, Humor, Tales from the Kitchen