Search Results for: blog family travel what you can learn at an apple orchard

Pumpkins Aren’t Just for Carving!

It’s pumpkin season! If you travel along country roads you will see pumpkin stands on every corner. As fall progresses many flock to pumpkin patches to fun and to purchase pie pumpkins and pumpkins for carving. I took my family to the apple orchard just the other day to purchase apples and pumpkins. As I took pictures of my kids by large pumpkins and enjoyed the beautiful orange colors of fall, I wondered “What is the point of a pumpkin?” I could not see any reason beyond pie and decoration for a pumpkin to exist. While pumpkin pie is a … Continue reading →

Autumn-Inspired Recipes: Pairing Apples with Pork

Sixteen pounds and counting. And I’m not referring to my waist. That’s about how many pounds of fresh apples I have left after picking a bushel of them at our local orchard a couple weeks ago. Needless to say, the task of creating mouthwatering dishes my family will happily devour is becoming more of a chore than a pleasure. But, I digress. If you too are looking for ways to incorporate fresh apples into your daily menu you might consider the following recipes I whipped up a few days ago… when I was still excited about cooking with apples. PORK … Continue reading →

Fall Harvest Apple Meatloaf

Did you go apple picking this weekend? We went about a week ago and I’m still only about halfway through the bushel (about 42 pounds) we collected. Needless to say, it’s all apples all the time around here. Preparing apple dishes morning, noon and night has forced me to dig deep into my recipe archives. Last night I came across two meatloaf recipes that call for apples, though I’ve only experimented with one and that was way back in college when I was living with a girl who was majoring in Food Science. In any event, if you are looking … Continue reading →

Amazing Apple Crisp Recipes

I can’t think of a better way to spend a crisp fall day with family and friends than apple picking. A few days ago one of my best friends and her mom (who had just flown in from Hawaii) joined my family for a day of picking at our local apple orchard. My preschooler had a blast (as usual) running from tree to tree sampling the sweet and juicy goodness of McIntosh and Red Delicious to Rome Beauties and Galas. Once we got home I got busy working on a number of our favorite apple recipes—-namely apple crisps. Over the … Continue reading →

17 Ideas for Capturing Couple Time This Fall

Fall inspires romance doesn’t it? Seems like love is in the air everywhere you turn. The cooler weather makes it ideal for snuggling up closer to the one you love. The changing colors are a good excuse to go for a drive or a walk and enjoy some time together. Those are just a couple of the more popular ways to capture couple time this fall, but there are others. Here’s some ideas inspired from my own experiences as well as from articles I’ve read (and noted herein) written by fellow Families.com bloggers. Passing Time at Patches, Orchards, and Farms … Continue reading →

Easy Apple Recipes

Is your home overflowing with apples? Ours is. If you read about our recent adventures at the U-Pick apple orchard you understand why. Fall is prime apple picking season and even if you don’t venture out to a farm and pluck the ripe red fruit yourself, you should seriously consider infusing your diet with the healthy fruit. Not only do apples offer a host of essential vitamins and minerals, studies show eating fresh apples before a meal aids weight loss by filling you up and reducing the absorption of calories and excess cholesterol. With that in mind I’ve compiled a … Continue reading →

Family Travel—-What You Can Learn at an Apple Orchard

We just returned from our annual trip to the local apple orchard and I’m staring at the receipt from our adventure. My 3-year-old daughter spent more than an hour happily bouncing from branch to branch plucking ripe red apples and placing them into her plastic bag. (This was after I convinced her that the farmer might ask us to leave if she continued to throw rotten apples into the nearby buffalo pen.) Gazing at my receipt it appears the hands on lesson in produce growing and harvesting was included in the price of the apples. The apples at the U-Pick … Continue reading →

An Apple A Day Keeps Cancer Away

In a previous blog I recounted our recent trip to a local apple orchard. Despite my concerns about the farm’s pricing structure, we had a great time and left with more apples than we could possibly consume. In fact, if the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is really true I should be able to keep my daughter out of the pediatrician’s office until next summer. Kidding aside, the health benefits associated with apples are serious business. Studies show eating apples can reduce a number of diseases. And with apple harvest season in full swing there’s no … Continue reading →

Family Travel: Taking Your Children To A Strawberry Farm

I was going to title this blog “A Trip To The Strawberry Farm—A Parent’s Survival Guide,” but I didn’t want to send the wrong message. Yesterday my 3-year-old daughter and I finished off the last two pieces of a very tasty strawberry rhubarb pie. It was a pie we made together with the fresh strawberries we picked earlier this summer at our local berry farm. (I froze a few pounds and have been adding them to recipes throughout the summer.) Nothing says summer than fresh strawberries, right? That was my thinking about two months ago when I loaded my daughter … Continue reading →

Traveling With Children—Fall Lessons Learned

Most people tend to review what they have accomplished in the course of a month on the last day of the month. Typically, I follow the same rule. However, the last day of October was a rather busy one for me so I held off on the internal review until today. Looking back, my family traveled quite a bit this month. Most of our trips centered on Halloween related activities. I blogged about several of our adventures, but neglected to write about our trip(s) to various pumpkin patches. The prime pumpkin-picking season is over, but the lessons learned can be … Continue reading →