Apple picking

I love apple picking. I went apple picking today with some friends and their kids. Our church does a play group for moms and their kids. We have fun playdates once a month. We had so much fun. This is the first picking of any kind that I have done (unless you count nose picking). I had the best pumpkin donuts too, and I don't like anything pumpkin. I ended up picking 11 lbs of apples. I hope to puree apples and freeze them for Zander. And I had to get some apple cider too.

Zander and I picking our first apples ever

I had this great photo op. idea, and Zander would not look up

for any of the pictures, and I took a lot. I tried everything.

They had a petting zoo, and this is Joseph with the goat

Ella

Zander on a tractor

Then after apple picking I went shopping quick for an outfit. On my way to the store I called my best friend, Jane, and told her to come to my house 1/2 hour later because I had to stop at the store quick. She asked what store, and I told her. She said she was standing in front of that very same store. So, we ended up shopping together and then going out to Applebee's for dinner. After dinner we went back to my house. I put Zander down to bed, and then we started on invitations. We are throwing my sister a bridal shower on October 17th and we had to get working on the invitations. We had fun, and had a pen war in the process. Jane won. We were up until 12:30 a.m. working on the invitations, and almost all of the invitations are finished. I have to finish up the rest on my own because we didn't buy enough.

Another Zoo

Zander and I went to another zoo today, the zoo in Michigan City, Indiana. This time we took my niece Alyssa with us, and we stayed at this zoo a lot longer. We met some of my friends from church there. Four other mom's and their kids went too. It was a lot of fun. One day a month the young mom's from my church plan an event to get us all together. The first month we went to Lake County Fair Grounds to play at the playground and have a picnic lunch. The second month we went to the Splash Park, and this month we went to the zoo. We all have a lot of fun together. This zoo was small, but very nice. The animals are very close to you, sometimes a little too close. Alyssa, Zander, and I were walking past the tigers after getting something to drink, and all of sudden the tiger charged at us from across the cage and growled really loud at us. He even showed us all of his teeth. I wish I got a picture of that. It was quite scary and I don't get scared easily. You see the cage is about 2 or 3 feet from where you stand; it is really close. There is even a sign up at the tiger cage that says caution, you may be sprayed by urine. It is just the tiger marking his territory. Well, at least we didn't get sprayed with urine. On another note, cute story from our zoo experience is this one: Alyssa and I were looking at the really pretty parrots they have there (they may be a different type of bird, but I am not sure what kind it is, I just know it had a long feathered tail and were very colorful). Anyways they were cawing and I told Alyssa maybe they would talk to us. I was joking because I did not think they could talk. All of a sudden one of the birds says hello (and no one else was around, so it was definitely the bird). It was so cool.

The ferocious tiger

This picture was not zoomed in. This shows how close we were to the end of the tiger's cage.

My beautiful niece, Alyssa, at lunch break.

Zander and Alyssa. Zander spent most of his time at the zoo sleepingA Mamma Llama and to the right is her baby Llama, a fence overThe Mamma Llama up close. It was so soft. She kept sticking her head up on top of the fence, or through the fence to be petted. It was so cute.