How I Spent My Past Two Weekends

Its been a busy past couple weeks.

Last weekend I took the kids apple picking at Erwin Orchards and Cider Mill - highly recommended (they even have a blog). It was hot, hot, hot last Sunday, but the Ginger Gold apples were fantastic - I've never had one before and its now my favorite apple - sweet, apply, and crisp with a great firm texture (I hate mushy apples except in its proper place as apple sauce). The Paula Red and Ida Red varieties weren't nearly as good.

The kids enjoyed picking apples, especially when I served as a lift and got them to the fine apples near the tops of the trees.  It was good for them to see where apples come from, and picking your own beats the store hands down. 

Picking apples in the hot sun with tractor rides amongst the varieties done, we headed in to buy some cider and doughnuts.  Cider is great when you're hot, and this was good cider, served nice and chilled with some fine fresh doughnuts.

The kids then played on the tricycle track, on cycles that cry out for some maintenance, lubrication, and replacement, but they had fun for all that the trikes were heavy and very slow to move, and no serious spills occurred.

After the successful day we went off to swim and went home.

For the Labor Day weekend I headed to Toronto for my cousin Paul's wedding.  The wedding was held at McLean House, a beautiful location for such an occasion.

The day before on heading to the open house at Paul's parents, Leah got to experience her first ever subway ride, with a switch in lines to another train.

A very nice wedding, and Paul and my now new (and quite wonderful and a worthy addition to the family) cousin Kate are splendidly matched for each other.  May they have a very long sweet life together ahead of them.  At the brunch I got a chance to sit beside some of their friends from New Brunswick who had done one of the readings during the wedding ceremony and some very erudite and far-ranging conversation was had from the topics of wedding to the US and Canadian economies and beyond - very pleasant indeed.

The wedding offered a sweet finish - samples of cookies from both sides of each of the brides and grooms families.  Paul did quite a faithful recreation of my Nana's chocolate chip cookies.

We drove back after stopping at my Mother-in-law's apartment, from whose balcony I took this nice shot of the Toronto Skyline: 

We then made incredibly good time on the road and at the border and had a record 4 hour door-to-door trip.  A first time we've ever gotten under 5 hours with the kids on board.

So two very different but very nice weekends.