A is for Apple, Autumn & Anniversary

This year my birthday fell on a Friday and my first wedding anniversary fell on a Monday. As soon as I glanced at my calendar some time in July, I knew I'd be taking a four day weekend. SWEET!

Pete also had Monday off and planned our day. We He decided we should go apple picking up in New Paltz! New Paltz is 2 hours north of  NYC. Neither of us had ever been there and were looking forward to some autumn activities.

It was a gorgeous day out (a bit chillier than the year before) and all day long I pointed out things we were doing at that specific time in 2010. "Oh... now I was getting my hair done!" "Now we had our reveal!"  "Now we said I Do!"

We went to a place called Wrights Farm where they had 500 acres of apples. (That's a lot of apples.) We drove up the lane and around to the parking area by the trees and saw only 4 other cars. We brought a picnic lunch and by the time we finished eating, the other 3 cars had finished......

WE WERE ALONE!

As a New Yorker who deals with billions of people a day on the subway and in Times Square by my office and treasures her personal space, it was surreal to be the only ones apple picking. It was like our own little apple sanctuary!

Sidenote: Right as we got out of the car, we looked up and saw people sky diving!
You can't really tell by this photo but you could see it in person!


The little dots on the top

 Last year we went apple picking on the absolute last day and there was NOTHING left. We made sure to not make the same mistake again! This time every single tree was bursting with fruit. It was impossible to choose which lil apple guys we'd take home. Times 70. I think we have 70 apples at home.

Like my apple pickin' shirt?

When you enter the farm, each person gets a "peck" bag each. You can get a larger size if you want, but 2 pecks was more than enough for us. We filled our bags to the top! All the while Pete rambled off things he would be baking with the apples - bread, muffins, pies, bakes with strusel & other things. And I rambled off all the ways I would eat my apples - on sandwich thins, ... whole. LOL I ran out of ideas. Good thing Pete is around :)

Apples!

 Seriously, you have no idea how happy the above picture made me. Look at all the choices!! :D 

It's always great to get out of the city and get some fresh air! I often forget that it gets rural and natury quite quickly.

Afterwards we wandered around the market they have there and bought some pumpkins, a spaghetti squash, mums and apple cider donuts. I had to control myself from not leaving there with 80 pounds of pumpkins and squash, 15 mum plants and all of the jarred jams.

Later that night we took the top tier of our wedding cake out of the freezer and had a slice. (Well, actually we defrosted it the day before.) Isn't it pretty?



See where our wedding topper was?



Um, it sorta tasted how it looked LOL! We each had our traditional bite and got rid of it. I am now greatful for the freezer space. ;)

And just so you know, we plan to go to a different apple picking place in October with my sister and nephew! Hopefully we'll need more apples by then. It'll be fun to go with a kid :D