Our Family – Page 152 – Andelin Adventures

Apple Country

Since we are in California, I really wanted to take the kids to Apple Country, in Oak Glen. The last time Kyle and I had been there we went with Kyle’s family, I was pregnant with Ethan, and Kyle’s dad was in a wheel chair. And since apples usually ripen in the fall I thought it was just the perfect time to go. The kids had a blast.

We wore our new M&M shirts, which was awesome, because all I had to do was look at the colors around me and when one color was out of my sight, I knew who was gone. 😉 And everyone there thought it was totally cute that we were all M&M’s. (Too bad I didn’t get a picture of the family.)

We stopped off at a playground, by the Oak Glen school, first to give the kids a chance to get their wiggles out after the car ride. Then we went to go ranch hopping. The first two were so packed there was nowhere to park, so we went to the third and we got lucky. Just as we were deciding to leave and check out the next ranch, we saw a parking spot. 😀

We went inside and got to taste all kinds of apples, some of which I had never even heard of. We picked out a kind that we all liked the best, and got to buy some. And we got to taste some fresh apple cider. Then we went back to the car and Kyle headed back to go buy some apple cider donuts. MMMM I remember those from the last time Kyle and I went. The line was outrageous though. I sat with the kids in the car, and gave Chloe a bottle and he was STILL waiting in line by the time she finished. So I took the kids to go sit at a table in some shade.

And Kyle’s still in line:

When he finally rounded the corner to get into the building I took the kids down to go wait in line with him. So we got to see them make the donuts.

Oh the wait was so worth it. The donuts were yummy. 😀

Then we finished off our trip to apple country by stopping off at one more apple stand. And they had winter banana apples. Kyle had told the kids about trying winter banana apples in apple country many years ago. So we finished off the day sampling the infamous winter banana apples.

(There are oodles more pictures in the photo gallery)

The Chocolate Factory

Before continuing on our journey to Grandpa & Grandma’s house we decided to take the kids on the tour of the Ethel M chocolate factory in Henderson, Nevada. The kids had a great time looking through the windows and watching the employees make the chocolates. Then we got to have a sample of chocolate. But Kyle and I were somewhat dissapointed in the chocolates in the store. Last time we went to the factory we got to have a sample of any one of the chocolates they had there. This time we got a solid chocolate coin, and all the individual chocolates cost $2 a piece! There was no way we were going to buy chocolates for that kind of money, give me See’s any day. 😉 Before heading back to the car, we went over to the M&M’s World store and we got M&M shirts for the whole family. Jeremy really wanted an M&M dispenser, and he got super lucky because they were doing a special that if you spent a certain amount of money, you get the dispenser free. THEN he wanted M&M’s for it. Go figure. Well again he got lucky. The cute ladies that worked there, gave each of the kids some M&M’s from a bag that they had to pass out samples from, then she quickly and quietly slipped me the rest of the bag. 😀 Purple M&M’s, how did she know that purple is my favorite color? 😉 And we got to try some coconut M&M’s. Oh they were so good!

This sign was hanging from the ceiling in the factory:

Now I think it’s time to go eat some purple M&Ms. 😉

The Castle

The kids had two days off from school so we decided that we would take off and go to California to visit the family. 🙂 We left Wednesday after the kids got home from school and Kyle got home from work (which means we left pretty late in the day). But before leaving we made arrangements to stay the night in a ‘castle’. Which is more widely known as Excalibur hotel in Las Vegas.

I had never stayed in a Las Vegas hotel before, so I was pretty excited too. We finally got there around 1 am (Vegas time). And of course the kids had been sleeping in the car so they were wide awake and totally excited to be in the castle, while Kyle and I were dead tired and just wanted to catch a few hours of sleep before continuing on our way to Grandpa and Grandma’s house.

Picture Time

A couple of weeks ago we went in to have family pictures taken. And we wanted pictures of just Chloe, so we went ahead and had pictures taken of each of our kids.

We started with Dinah:

And here’s Tyra

And then it was Jeremy’s turn:

Then it was Ethan’s turn, and the kid would NOT smile. We finally did get a couple of good pictures of him, after we took the pictures of the family and of Chloe, and we said we were all done.

Here’s Chloe!

See all the poses from this sitting in the photo gallery, and let us know if you want anything. 🙂

Halloween tree

We are weird people. We put our Christmas tree up in October and hang pumpkins on it, so it can be our halloween tree.