Apple Picking

After our first attempt to pick apples last week failed, the local place we tried at the reccommendation of a friend turned out to not be a UPick place, we went back to our old stand by orchard. It's the one we've been taking ER to for years, it's just quite a hike for us. But as you can tell the lengthy drive was worth it! We found plenty to pick.

As usual ER was accompanied by a cast of characters her grandparents, me, and my brother...no Brad because evidently work likes him to show up on random Tuesdays.My new favorite picture of ER, there is just something about fall that always makes for the most beautiful pictures.

Thanks to my brother Dave for treating us all to a fun time and a ton of apples! Although, he might not have offerred, had he realized that giant bag was going to cost $20! Brad wants to know why UPick costs so much when you're doing all the work. I told him it's the experience you're paying for. He didn't have a response to that, but I'm pretty sure he was thinking he'd rather have $20.
Shared At Wordless Wednesday at Five Minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go, Two of a Kind Working on a Full House, and Wordful Wednesday at Parenting by Dummies.
Here are some tips on how to pick and store fresh apples from Kraft's Delicous Days, these are real handy for me have now! I didn't realize apples stored in a bag inside the fridge could last so long!
Once your pantry is all stocked up with yummy fruit, you'll need something to do with them. How about this easy recipe for 20-garlic-clove chicken – only 5 ingredients! We love garlic!

I hope our pictures inspire you to get to the apple orchards, it really is a fun family activity and you end up with delicious fruit to enjoy afterward. Do you have a favorite way to use apples? Now that I've got a big bag of them in my pantry, I need suggestions! Please leave them in the comments.

Disclosure: Information and video links on Kraft's Delicious Days was provided to me via a representative.

Mimi's Cafe

It's been cold and rainy and I'm trying to lose a few pounds. So naturally, I've become obsessed with comfort food...oh yes creamy, stick to your ribs, deep fried goodness in my case. One of my favorite places to indulge is Mimi's Cafe, which sadly, does not have any locations in my home state. Well when you see the carb fest I tend to order there, you might think it's not such a bad thing in my case, at least for my waistline!

No, it's not local anymore but was when I lived in California and New Mexico, and I lived by one long enough to become addicted. The last time I was at one, was in Florida, when we went to the Social Media Moms Conference, last February. I am so obsessed, I looked online to see if a location would coincide with our trip route, and yes, I know that is totally nuts! One of the best things about Mimi's is that they greet you with a bread basket filled with the delicious carrot raisin nut loaf that you can smear with whipped spread, it has a hint of honey in it. There's other rolls in there too, but really when you could be eating carrot raisin bread does that matter?

You can also get it as a muffin and all their muffins are really good, even the bran, which in my opinion says a lot. Many of meals come with a choice of muffin, and I usually take mine home and fill up on bread. Can you tell I love me some carrot raisin loaf?
My former coworker Erica is the one who introduced me to their Spinach Artichoke dip, one of the absolute very best I've ever indulged in. I think it's the little bits of sundried tomatoes that really put this one over the top.

Once I've finished eating that ooey gooey four cheese infused fun, I like to follow it with Chicken Cordon Bleu: Golden chicken breasts layered with grilled ham, Swiss cheese and Dijon cream sauce. Served with mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables.

I think the best way to describe it is to refer to the wisdom of the Yo Gabba Gabba Gang, "There's a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy!" Normally I am not a fan of mustard sauces but that Dijon cream sauce I could eat with a spoon! It's all I can do to keep from licking the plate!
Just so you know, Mimi's Cafe does have lots of healthy choices and it's possible to eat a well balanced meal there. I just tend to order things I never make at home and go a little overboard. But hey, I was at Disney World, I was walking those caleries off! My mom got quiche, and it came with salad, a side of fruit, and a muffin.

Touring the Dow Gardens

After we saw The Art of the Brick last month, we walked next door to the Dow Gardens with Aunt Cheri. Begun in 1899, by the founder of the Dow Chemical Company, on just 8 acres it's since grown to 110. It now includes several smaller gardens, hills, towering evergreens, and ponds that are beautiful to meander through.

It was suprisingly uncrowded for a beautiful sunny day. We took a leisurely walk along the stream to the Children's Garden. What a wonderful place for little ones. I thought it was very well thought out, with lots of activities to do, like a picture scavenger hunt. There is also an elevated building fun to look out of to take in the views, and where you can also play in the sand or crawl through the tunnel underneath. One of ER's favorite things to do was making huge bubbles but she also liked pumping water with the old fashioned pump and sweeping up.
The cheerful sunflowers were my favorite sight in the Children's Garden.

There are also several vegetable displays throughout. You can even eat or pick a couple while you're there. We also walked through a now empty grape arbors and saw quite a lot of squash.

I also really liked the ABC garden. If we'd had more time, it would've been fun to walk about looking at the plants for each letter. There were handy labels all over so you could find them. It's not just an alphabet activity, but also a great way to learn more about plant life. There were several I'd never heard of.

The beautiful rose beds full of fragrant blooms were nearby. It was so colorful and many varieties were represented. I haven't seen such lovely roses since I was in California.
Afterward, we continued along the paved walk for awhile before walking through the fields for this view of the historic Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Home. Built in 1899, it's often referred to as The Pines, and is an example of their son Alden B. Dow's Unit Block construction. The white unit boxes are six-sided rhombuses that gain strength when stacked together. Part of the house is actually underwater and you can view out, literally into the pond, from the windows. A walk through the fields among the trees led us over the red lacquered handrails and bridges, I still can't believe I didn't take a picture of those. They were also designed by Alden B. Dow, and are an unexpect bright burst of color among the greenery, with a surprisingly modern look to them. We also came upon and then walked over the Sun Bridge, a Dow Garden landmark.

The Dow Gardens are known for their spring butterfly exhibit, but even though we were there at the wrong time of the year we still saw plenty.
It's an inventive and imaginative public garden with a wide variety of open spaces to explore. The kids will have be kept busy in the Children's Garden and when they're done with it, there's still plenty of space to run off excess energy or shady spots to relax in. We enjoyed all the interesting things tucked here and there and the Midland community is fortunate to have such an outdoor treasure. If we lived closer, we'd be there ALL the time. Thank you to Aunt Cheri for introducing us to it!
See some more beautiful pictures at kt moxie, they are gorgeous and she got a great one of the red bridges. She also got some of the scarecrows, ER liked a lot.

Our Last Hurrah of Summer

Today is Labor Day in the US, a day that celebrates the working force and marks the end of summer for many. I thought it was a fitting time to share what looks to be our last bit of summer. I can't believe it was just last week I was sweatin' on the beach along Lake Huron! It's definitely felt like fall the last few days.

We spent a few nights at my parents' house at the end of August and drove a few hours over to Lexington for the day. The beaches are rockier so it's not as easy to swim, but on the plus side they are a lot less crowded.

We practically had the place to ourselves and the breeze by the lake was refreshing, it was hot and humid otherwise.

ER is a collector, she loves to pick up bits and pieces, she was in heaven! She scooped up lots of interesting rocks and shells.

After playing for awhile, ER enjoyed the play ground above the beach and we all had a snack in the shade. Wasn't our view beautiful?

We drove up the road a little bit to Port Sanilac for ice cream and found this playground. I haven't seen one of these spinning things in quite awhile. They've been removed from most places because they can be kind of dangerous. Anyone remember their name? Kids tend to jump from them while they're still spinning. I used to love them when I was growing up, and ER loved it too.

Obligatory picture of me, to prove I was along too.

The Art of the Brick at the MCFTA

Brad's Aunt Cheri and Uncle Bill were up from South Carolina, visiting where they used to live. We drove a few hours to met Cheri at the Midland Center for the Arts and tour the special LEGO® exhibition they are currently hosting. The first thing we saw was this amazing LEGO® town made by the Michigan Lego Users Group. It even contains some Midland landmarks, like the tall building.

Here's another view, it's really huge and you could look at it all day and not see all the details. So much fun for LEGO® enthusiasts! We spied samurai's sword fighting on top of a Chinese restaurant, Indiana Jones, Princess Leia, and several different kinds of fruit trees among other things.

ER enjoyed playing in the SnapZone with these large scale blocks. There were also tables and plenty of regular sized LEGO® set out for budding architects to build with. You could spend all day sculpting with them.

Twenty-eight of Nathan Sawaya's sculptures made entirely out of LEGO® building bricks were the main part of the exhibit. I was especially taken with this rendering of crayons, the wrapper peeling off is what really impressed me.

ER was more drawn to this castle coming out of a book. I also thought this version of Mt. Rushmore was pretty impressive. "Think" was Brad's favorite.If your child loves LEGO®, you should definitely check out Nathan Sawaya's online gallery to see more of his work. You'll be messmerized and inspired by his creativity and the sheer range of his subjects from every day objects, to famous landmarks and people, to the imaginary.

I'll leave you with one more creation we saw, not by Nathan Sawaya, it was one of several famous buildings around the top floor perimeter. This magical castle, ER really loved. She spent several moments looking at Cinderella, finding Minnie and Micky, as well as several Toy Story Army guys scaling it's walls.

Dinner at Zingerman's Roadhouse

For our 10th wedding anniversary dinner Brad and I drove over to the "big city" and had dinner at one of our favorite places. Zingerman's Roadhouse specializes in upscale American comfort food using seasonal, heirloom ingredients.

What that means is, I can go some where a whole lot nicer, than a place known for its iconic golden arch and not have to worry about the meals being too fancy-dancy for Miss. Picky eater...and by that I mean me and not the four year old. While the decor is decidedly Roadhouse mixed with kitch, it's still upscale with the prices adjusted accordingly.

They DO have a kids menu so while we left the chicklet with a babysitter we could've brought her. But as you parents all know, sometimes you need a little couple time. It's actually very kid friendly; ER's been there before. Dress is casual with lots of good conversation is going on all around you, which is handy to help drown out the loud noises your own rowdy child might or might not be making. Plus the multitude of colorful salt and pepper shaker sets displayed around the Roadhouse, yes I'm serious, are fun for them to look at.

We tried a new appetizer these, Spicy Sweet Onion Rings: Spicy batter-fried Spanish onions, served with house-made spicy ketchup. Which might have been a bad thing, because now I won't ever want to get anything else. Thinner and with a light batter they are surprisingly ungreasy.

Next time I need my own order, because, it would be unseemly to slap my husband's hand as he reaches for another, it was after all our anniversary dinner, so I refrained...this time. I asked for a side of their homemade Ranch dressing to dip them in and it was so good I could have drank it. The fresh herbs in it take it to a completely different level of wonderfulness.

Oh and that basket back there, that was full of tasty sourdough, probably from their bakehouse. Very good, that I HAD to indulge in a few slices, which were totally worth the carb splurge as it's the best sourdough I've had since leaving San Francisco.I have had a hankering for chili and not the kind that's overly tomato based, yick - see, I told you I was picky. The Ancho Beef Chili: Handcut Corman Farm grass-fed beef with black beans in ancho chili broth, was exactly what I had in mind. The spice was just right and it was very robust, plus I just love black beans. I could've used a little, and by that I really mean a lot more, green onions on top.

I got a giant sized bowl, seriously I don't think you can tell from the picture but it was HUGE, that was very filling. Brad helped me eat some there and we still had leftovers to bring home. Next time I know to order a cup. To go with my manly beefy chili, I got something lighter. Tomato and Mozzarella Salad: Cornman Farms sliced heirloom tomatoes (cherokee purple, brandy wing, green german or green zebra) served with fresh mozzarella and olive oil. Isn' it pretty? The coolness of the tomatoes paired really well with spice of the chili.

Whoever added the pepper did so with a heavy hand, which would've been perfect for my brother Dave, but I could've used a little less. But freshly cracked pepper often comes with tomatoes so I expected it, and scraped it off to the side just as planned.

Tomatoes were incorporated into several salads and entrees, it is the height of the season here in Michigan after all. I wanted to try several but that chili was calling my name so I settled for this simple but elegant salad.Brad got the Pit-Smoked Beef Brisket: Niman Ranch beef, pit-smoked then braised ‘til it’s very tender. Served with Alex's Red Rage Tomato BBQ Sauce, mashed potatoes (from local farmers!) and Southern-style braised greens (made with lots of bacon and ham hock). He's not cooperating with me right now so I can't tell you exactly what he thinks. He did rave about the potatoes and cleaned the plate of all the brisket so I think it was a success.

All except the greens, those were definitely not appreciated. I think it might be because neither of us were raised eating braised greens but we both took the "I'll try it," bite and then no more.
What's a celebration without dessert? How 'bout a fried donut sundae? Yep, you guessed it. We cleaned the plate. All in all a wonderful dinner out, Brad and I joked that without the kiddo along we might have nothing to say, but we managed to converse quite pleasantly the whole time. Which was nice, I'm glad we hadn't forgotten how to talk for long periods, uninterrupted, LOL!

The only disappointment, and this was quite minor, was that our server wasn't quite as outgoing and friendly as they have been in the past. It used to be that if you mentioned you were trying to decide between two things they'd bring out a little sample to help make up your mind. Heck the last time I went for dessert with my friend our waiter brought out some other sweet things for us to try without being asked. But she didn't offer anything this time, but maybe that's a sign of the times. The economy in the area is kinda in the tank, unfortunately:( But we had a lot of fun and left stuffed anyway, plus I didn't really need any corn dogs...but I really wanted them, just a bite or two☺