We enjoyed every minute of our long Labor Day weekend including some down time at home as well as a few fun adventures outside. On Saturday morning, I took a class at Shred415 and then taught a class so once I was home, we got ready to head about 50 min east of us to go to Velvet Ice Cream Factory for lunch & ice cream followed by apple picking at Branstool Orchards for honeycrisp apples (my favorite!). I took the girls to Branstool once last year but Todd had never been. We've all been apple picking together the last few years at another farm (which we'll go to in a few weeks) and Todd said he actually liked Branstool better. It wasn't crowded at all (which I'm sure was due in part to the OSU game and it's pretty early to be apple picking), much smaller orchard, less expensive, and they had a great little kids' play area set up this year. I would have to agree with him on all aspects except I really like the market at the other orchard. We got home just in time for Todd & I to get ready for our date night at Del Mar in the Short North. It's a couple weeks late but we were finally getting around to celebrating our 8th anniversary. The food & drinks were great (except I was slightly disappointed at the brussel sprout dish because it literally had 4 brussel sprouts and seemed more like a salad) as was the service. We were in and out in a little over an hour which left us time to head back near our house to check out Olentangy River Brewing Company. Todd wasn't super impressed with the beers but was glad we went. He still maintains one of us favorite newer local craft brewery is Nocterra Brewing Company which happens to be about a half mile from our house!
I had a long week last week (I was up before 4:00 AM two days for work) so I was more than happy to have a pizza & movie night with Todd & the girls on Friday night (they picked Lilo & Stitch)
Ready for game day on Saturday
We took a few obligatory pictures at Velvet...
including this one...
before eating lunch & getting ice cream
She's looking so old now!
And since both the girls got "kid" flavors (cotton candy and bubble gum), Todd & I split an Elephant Ear milkshake which was SO good
Ready to go apple picking
Ironically, she went right to this cutout
My little bee
The first of many "How Tall This Fall?" signs you'll see on here over the next month or so
Searching for the perfect apple
Found some good ones and already took a few bites
So tasty
One of the cutest apple pickers I've ever seen...
and here's the other one
Our only family pic we got
Cute little slide they had set up
Both girls loved this tractor
Dressed up and ready to celebrate 8 years out on the town
We started with some really good cocktails at Del Mar (Todd had the green one which had avocado in it...sounds odd but it was so good!) followed by potato bread (definitely recommend), brussel sprouts (good but the size was disappointing), I had the most amazing burger (made with Wagyu beef) and Todd had a beef noodle bowl that he said was good but not outstanding
We ended our night at Olentangy River Brewing Co. with a flight sampler
Sunday was more of our low-key day at home. We had wanted to do something outside but it randomly rained a few times throughout the day so after church & the grocery store, we hung out at home before heading to a birthday party around dinner time.
Making beer is now a family affair--we helped Todd bottle his first batch of beer from his basement home brewery
The girls really enjoyed being a part of the process!
We went to our friends' house for their daughter's birthday party where she received a face painting kit from her brother so of course he had to paint everyone's faces (I couldn't even take a picture of Lucy's painted face because I was laughing so hard--her entire face was dark purple and all you could see were her eyeballs and mouth)
Again, the weather was throwing us for a loop on Labor Day. It was the last day Zoombezi Bay was open so we were really hoping to get there but it was really cloudy all morning and only in the 70s so we went to the zoo instead. As soon as we got home in the early afternoon, there was a break in the clouds and the sun was out for awhile but we were having my parents over for dinner and needed to start getting food ready. We still had a great time at the zoo because we let the girls pick what they wanted to do which meant doing all the rides and then the highlight was letting them get dippin' dots. They've been asking ALL SUMMER to get them and were thrilled we finally did. Todd made ribs again (he did a couple weeks ago and they were so delicious we wanted to do them for my parents) and we had beautiful weather to sit outside and enjoy the company.
We started with camel rides...
then pony rides...
(We did actually see a few animals including the prairie dogs)
train ride...
(met a random sea turtle)
carousel ride (Cece's first time not crying and actually liking it!!)...
and we finished up in Jungle Jack's Landing doing a few rides there (this was Lucy's first time on this ride and while it isn't her favorite, we were really proud that she tried something new)
Before heading home, the girls enjoyed their first dippin' dots experience!
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