Favorite Weekend

In January when we put up our new calendar, one of the first things we do is block out the second weekend of October for the MCC Sale and cider making day.  It's the best weekend ever.

I've been going to the MCC Sale for as long as I can remember, and now I drag David and our children to it.  (They totally love it.)

Daphne got to start going in 2009 when she was almost 10 months old.
















And now Christian is on his second year.

We take annual pictures in front of this banner, so whoever is in charge of putting it up each year, I hope you're reading this and know that you CANNOT EVER forget the banner.  It would ruin a family tradition and we just can't have that.

It's hard to put a finger on why we love this sale so much.  Part of it is just that we've gone for so many years and I can't imagine a fall without of it.  Part of it is the festive air, the people you get to chat with, and the whoopie pies.  (Which I accidentally left my peanut butter one at my grandparent's house.  Sad for me.)

For Daph it's the straw maze, where she smartly figured out that if you hit a dead end, you just go over the straw wall.

For David, it's clearly the quilts.   I know the quilts are what draw any man to the MCC Sale.

I've told David that it's one of my life goals to have handmade blankets on every bed in our house and so we kept our eyes open for a good one to buy this weekend.  He was alarmed when we walked into the auction room and heard a quilt sell for $3000, but we ended up finding a much cheaper comforter on the comforter table.  We brought it home and I am happy.

If the sale isn't fun enough, afterward we head to my grandparent's house for cider and doughnut making.  (Same place as C's birthday party!)  Grandpa has an amazing apple crop this year, and while some of us were hard at work picking apples, others were playing apple baseball.

 




















But if I'm honest, 'picking apples' consisted of picking apples off the ground after Grandpa had already shaken them off the tree.   It was quite easy.

Grandpa said the cider press belonged to his grandpa...which I'm not so good at math, but I feel like that means the press is very old.

future cider-maker in training

Our freezer is stocked with cider to last us through the winter. 

My sisters and I made the doughnuts this year.  We used this recipe for pumpkin doughnuts.   They were very, very, very, very good.  Also they were delicious.

happy doughnut eaters...and JEN MADE THE BLOG!!

The fruits of our labor were enjoyed immensely by these three:

They may not look happy, but I think it's just because they were so focused on devouring their goodies. 

I realize that was a photo overload, but when you have such a great weekend it's not hard to come home with over 200 pictures on your camera. 

We're already looking forward to next year.