Update

(Note: we kept losing and finding and losing our camera this past week; not many pics to document an action-packed week)

Last Thursday we experienced Trunk or Treat for the first time. Talmage, once he got the procedural rules down, walked from trunk to trunk voicing the obligatory, "Trick or Treat!". Then, between cars he shouted to no one and everyone, "Thank you everybody! Thank you!" Such exultant jubilation. A kid's first Halloween must be incredibly mind-boggling. All of a sudden, people are handing you fistfuls of candy. Not only that, but then your parents turn a blind eye to it's unrestrained consumption. Now that's sweet.

On Halloween, Talmage and Joseph paid their oblations to the Halloween Gods again. I got a kick out of T's dinosaur tail bobbing behind him. Yep. No picture. Watching T's delight in the festivities, I learned what lots of you already know: holidays with kids are the best.

Saturday morning, Sydney and I drove to Quincy, Washington for an Apple Smashing party. After 5 1/2 hours in the car, we arrived at the resplendent, tidy apple orchard of the Yeates family. They're Mark and Marianne's aunt and uncle. HAYRIDE with KA, Hazel, Emma, Kate

Every year the cousins get together to glean apples and make apple juice with an Amish cider press. Uncle Carl drove the tractor up and down the rows of trees, pulling the wooden box behind him. All the cousins poured buckets and buckets of Fuji apples into the box. A box holds 900 pounds of apples. We filled it in about 20-30 minutes. The apples got a cold wash, then we threw them into a huge metal tub where they got a hot water bath. The rest of the afternoon was spent turning the grinder on the press. Thirty seconds on the wheel did me in. It was hard work, but everyone took turns, as it were. I wish I had pictures of the step-by-steps. The result, anyway, was a thick, rich, dark brown, apple juice. The sweetest, purest juice I've ever tasted. We brought home 8 gallons. The juicing was followed by a large chili and sandwich dinner and Halloween games. Sydney and I cut out around 7:30 p.m. for the long drive back home. I loved getting to know the Yeates and Marianne's side o' the family. Thanks, M&M, for the invite.