Sunday, October 25, 2009

Applesauce and Pumpkins

I love fall! I love the colors and the smells and the decorations and going to the orchard and making applesauce and and and... The last couple days have been overcast and rainy, which is the part of fall I don't like! My parents came in town on Friday and we had plans for the weekend to go to the orchard and to make applesauce. Well Saturday was supposed to be nasty so we decided to make applesauce and hold off on the orchard until today.

Billie (and Eli - only 2 more weeks!!!) came over to make applesauce too!! (Tim and Lindsy were out of town for Lindsy to run a marathon today!!) My parents brought the apples in town because they found an orchard that sold bushels of "seconds" (the apples that have fallen) for $8!! So they brought 3 bushels for us to make...that is a WHOLE LOT of applesauce!!! 56 Ziploc bags to be exact:)

This is 2 bushels because each of these bags was a half bushel, so you get the idea of just how many apples were in 3 bushels...
Billie and I hard at work!
Here is a pic of all of us except Jonathan...he preferred staying behind the camera instead of making the applesauce.
The applesauce turned out well after a bit of an accident. The apples that Billie and I used for our last batch of applesauce were very tart so we had to add a cup of sugar to it to sweeten it up. After we got our bowl about half filled with applesauce, I added a cup of sugar and then we tasted... I will always taste first in the future! The apples we used this time were sweet apples and we didn't have to add ANY sugar to it! Oops!

Today was a beautiful day. Blue skies, sunshine and a great temperature so we headed out to the orchard after church. We ate a hot dog lunch there and had delicious apple dumplings for dessert. Yum! We strolled through some of the orchard to get an apple to eat, picked pumpkins, bought homemade cider, and took pictures. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday!

Here we are looking for the perfect pumpkin...everyone was giving me a hard time because it took me the longest to find the perfect pumpkin to carve!
We think we found the right ones!
All of us couples trying to get a great portrait...too bad the sun was shining right on the sides of our faces making some shadows!

3 comments:

Justin and Jessica said...

I LOVE fall too ... except we've had so much rain, snow, and cold weather that we missed most of the fall colors. Our leaves fell off the tress without changing color. :(

Your applesauce looks delicious, and I love the new picture of you and J!

Sue said...

Love it! Your pictures are SO cute and wow... only 2 weeks left for Billie. She looks adorable. (I'm always a little envious still at pregnant bellies but oh well... I'll make a cup of lemonade instead!)

I can't get over how many apples you guys had. Our neighbor 2 doors down from us growing up had a small apple orchard so we'd always get the "2nds" too and make applesauce and all other sorts of apple dishes. One of THE best parts of Fall I think ;-) Glad you had such a great weekend with the Folks!

Have a great week. Have you started your new job yet?

Lindsy said...

Looks like fun! Glad you guys had such a great weekend.