Apple Picking & Thanksgiving Celebrations
I absolutely love fall. The trees changing colours, the cool, crisp air and especially turkey dinner and warm apple pie. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favourite holidays, because I’ve always been so fortunate to spend it surrounded by friends and family. This was the first year we knew thanksgiving would be different for us, because my soon-to-be parents in law were heading out of town and Covid has made seeing friends and family a lot trickier. But, we decided we weren’t going to let that ruin Junior’s second thanksgiving, especially since last year he was a newborn and couldn’t really enjoy it.
Since there would be no dinner at the in-laws, we decided to head to the valley for apple picking since we could turn it into a visit with Marcus’ grandparents as well. We went to the cutest little apple field that offered tractor rides too. We went a little late in the season so most of the apples had already been picked, but we were able to find a tree that had some apples just sitting there, waiting for us to pick them.
It was a nice day, but next thing we knew it was freezing! While Junior had more layers on than usual, half way through our time apple picking the temperature dropped to what felt like winter weather (it was the first day we regretted not bringing his winter jacket - just in case). Usually, this time of year is chilly, but nothing like how cold it was out there on that field. So we wrapped Junior up in a large blanket to keep warm and decided we’d head out shortly.
When we finished apple picking, we stopped to pick up some homemade pie to bring to turkey dinner later at my best friend’s house. I kid you not, she asked me about 5 times where we got the pie because it was melt in your mouth good. I still haven’t gotten the name of the place we picked it up from, and I know she’s reading this thinking “you still haven’t texted me the location!!!”. I thought I’d be able to figure it out by now, but here we are, haha.
After an amazing chicken dinner at Marcus’ grandparents, we headed back to the city. We spent the car ride having sing-a-longs despite our terrible voices and started to get excited to see some friends. After grabbing a few things from home (alcohol included), we headed over to my besties to enjoy a feast I was not expecting. We had a classic turkey dinner with Mac and Cheese, Brussel Sprouts, and so many other delicious things that I ended up being more stuffed than the turkey.
We had some drinks and channeled our younger selves by getting into some Tiktok dances (between us, I’m secretly pissed Tiktok didn’t exist when we were younger.. we had to force our parents to watch our dance routines we had made up, we would’ve killed in the Tiktok world, haha). Marcus headed home with Junior around bedtime so mom could stay and have some much needed girl time - he’s the best.
While we didn’t get to have our traditional thanksgiving dinner with our families, I was so thankful for the way the day turned out. We were still surrounded by loved ones and Junior got to spend some time with some extended family, kids included. I’m thankful for my newly grown family this year and can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for us.