List o' Fun--The Dallas Arboretum

About a week and a half ago we met some friends at the Dallas Arboretum.  The trip had it's issues (for one, they were an HOUR AND A HALF late), but we were able to get a few pictures of Olivia.  I'm noticing that picture taking is just not her thing! :)  There were lots of photo opportunities, but by the time we walked through the place she was asleep.  We plan on going back soon.

If she could just sit up on her own, this whole picture taking thing would be a little better. :)

Not happy :(

Ha ha! What we do for a picture.

This is the entry way.  Needless to say, there were LOTS of pumpkins!

Our first stop

Since we were waiting around for so long, by the time we got on the go Olivia was tired and cranky.  I didn't bring the Baby K'tan because I expected to push her in the stroller.  I have a hand me down Baby Bjorn (that was a hand me down to that person as well).  It was in the car, so I grabbed it at the last minute.  We haven't really used it.  Olivia lasted about 5 minutes in it.  I wasn't sad about it-it wasn't friendly on my back!  I'll remember the K'tan next time!

Apparently they do different attractions at different times.  Right now they have 8 castles set up.  They were cute.  The people we went with had a 4 year old girl, so she enjoyed them.  We hope to get better pictures with Olivia when we go again next week.

Besides the beautiful flowers, plants, trees, and fountains, there were pumpkins everywhere.

We went on Columbus Day, so it was super crowded.  Plus, it was cool and overcast that day, which never happens here.  Michael took lots of pictures of the scenery, but we hope to get more pictures with Olivia in them next time.

Apples, Apples... We've Got Apples

Well, we have apples coming out our ears.  We chose to "pick" the small bag, but even that is a lot of apples for us.  We chose to pick the baking apples, so baking is what I'll be doing.  But before the baking starts, we decided to make some caramel apples.

We bought a kit at the apple farm. They had a couple of different varieties--heat on the stove, the kind that comes in a square and you just wrap around, and the microwave time.  We went for convenience and chose the microwave kind.

Oddly, neither Michael nor I had ever made caramel apples before.  

It was a fun fall activity for us to do together!

I cleaned the apples and Michael stuck the sticks in them.

Michael cheesing! :)

Funny side note: This is a shirt Michael has had for a while and he enjoys the fit of it, so he wears it often.  My sister and friend Laurie were joking around a month or so ago that he needs to get some new shirts.  They said he is wearing it in almost every picture.  It's true.  I agreed with them.  I assured them that he had plenty of other shirts and that I would pass along the message.  Michael and I got a good laugh about it.  Like I said, that was about a month ago.  When we were doing the apples, I took his picture and then almost immediately he said, "Oh no!  It's the shirt!"  HA HA!  It just so happened that he was wearing the shirt and I was taking pictures.  Once again, we got a good laugh.

Not as good of a laugh as after this though...

Somehow Michael put the stick in and it came out all crooked on the other side.

He took it out and tried again and the same thing happened.  It cracked me up!

I was laughing so hard I was crying!  It's the little things...

Yummy, yummy goodness!

So fun!

Six apples down... many, many more to go!