apple picking adventure.

With a Yelp deal in hand ($10 for $20), Em, the Kiddos and I headed out on an apple picking adventure.  On the way, after trekking through East St. Louis and driving for what seemed like forever, we finally made it to the Millstadt Farm.  To Alex's great excitement we ALL loaded a little "bus" and headed out to the orchards.  When I say ALL I want you to envision Em, Alex, Lij in his car seat, our giant sit 'n stand stroller, Brie AND her baby Jenny (strapped snuggly into her respective car seat and stroller) being awkwardly squished up 3 steps into a little shuttle.  We were quite the sight to behold :0)  Once in the beautiful orchards I of course snapped a few pictures (you better believe I'm going to coordinate our outfits and take pictures when it takes 2 hours to get everyone fed, dressed and out the door then 40 minutes just to drive to the place ;0)).  Then Brie & Em picked apples while I watched Lij eat grass and Alex run around throwing rotten apples.  All in all I'd say it was pretty successful. 

When we'd had our fun we rode the little bus back in and carried our two bags of apples to the register.  "That'll be $45."  I almost choked as I heard the amount.  What in the world?  There is NO way I could pay $25 extra dollars for a bag of over priced apples.  I asked the cashier if we could possibly leave some of the apples for them to sell in their store since we had no idea that they'd be that heavy.  She was pretty grouchy about it but finally agreed.  We set a conservative amount of apples behind the register.  Next I pulled out my Yelp coupon.  She stared at it blankly and said she didn't know what it was.  After making a phone call she told us that I could only use it to buy things in the store.  Great.  At that point we had no shame, we took the large and heavy bag of apples, placed it behind the register and set the much smaller bag on the scale.  Em paid the total and we headed inside with our receipt in hand.  Thankfully a lady inside was much more approachable and understanding and allowed us to use the Yelp deal.  Thank heavens.  As we were walking out I told the kiddos to say goodbye to Eckert's, that'd it probably be our last time.  We've made a lot of great memories there, but I think next fruit-picking season we'll find some place a little bit closer to home.  There's no need to spend an hour and a half in the car to chase Alex around in a muddy field and then to get the run around at the register ;0)

As a side note, on the way back to St. Louis, Em insisted on making a quick stop so she could buy a car phone charger.  I was adamant about it taking too long and said that it would be at least a 20 minute detour.  She said she'd pay me $10 if she took longer than 7 minutes.  I wanted to see this ;0)  We stopped by a Radio Shack and she put on miss hustle pants and was back to the van in 4 minutes flat.  As she opened the door she asked, "How bout them apples?"  I ate my words and she kept her $10.  One thing I have to say about the whole experience is that Em is way better at adventuring than me.  If one or two things go differently than planned I start to panic and stress out.  As Em would put it, "Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff."  I could use A LOT more of that in my life.  Em, thanks for the adventure and helping me to lighten up and laugh a bit.  In the end, the outing did this often-uptight sister's soul some good :0)