more fun outings

A couple of days ago I took the kids to Burke Lake Park to ride the train and get icecream. They were so excited. Ethan is still talking about the train ride. As we went around the corner we saw this cool water wheel. The best part of the ride according to the kids was when we went through the dark tunnel. The ride didn't last long but thankfully because once we stepped inside the icecream parlor they put up the closed sign. We were the last ones served and that was a CLOSE one. Oh I would have had some pretty upset kids. Well I didn't realize that they only accepted cash and I only had $7 so we had to get 3 cups of icecream instead of everyone having their own cone. We picked our flavors of icecream and can I say that I had the best icecream flavor in the world. It was almond joy. I couldn't even believe they had that kind. That is my ALL TIME favorite candy bar. SO we got our icecream and took it outside to eat and then we had some meltdowns. UGLY ONES TOO. Rachel and Mayah were screaming "I want my own" over and over again. I started to get a bit impatient after explaining that we didn't have any more cash for everyone to get their own so we ended up leaving even before we finished our iceceam. We just went to the car and ate as we walked. I try really hard to avoid any type of scenes in public but we don't usually succeed. OH WELL. It was still fun.



Then today we decided to go to Purcellville to pick our own fruit at Crooked Run Orchard. I love the drive in Loudon county. It is so beautiful. I would love to live in that area if it wasn't so expensive. WE ended up picking 11 pounds of apples and a couple pounds of blackberries. It was nice that the blackberry patch was thornless. It was very easy picking but the apples were a little more tricky. It seemed like all the nice perfectly shaped ones were up high and we were not allowed to climb trees and they didn't have any ladders. But we managed to get some good ones. We haven't tasted them yet and I didn't realize how much the kids liked blackberries until I opened the fridge to see that they are almost gone and the kitchen floor shows the evidence. It is all purple and sticky. YUK. But it was a good experince for the kids. They weren't too excited about it because they were all so tired but they did pretty good helping. Caleb and Zach carried the bucket of apples back. Rachel and Ethan each carried a container of blackberries. When we first arrived there were quite a few people at the stand asking questions about what they had and this and that. Then the lady said "Don't got stuffing your faces full of blackberries. We have a rule that you pay for what you pick". So as we were walking to the fruit the kids saw some people picking the berries and eating them. Then one of the kids said, AHHHHHHH they are busted. They are eating the fruit without paying for it. It was funny. And the kids did SO good and didn't eat a single berry without paying..........well except for Mayah.