nole's birthday and a visit to the orchard

nov. 2 was my mom and my niece enolea's birthday. nole turned 2. jack and i took a road trip with my parent's in their van to go visit my sister and her fam.

note: jack was once again a fabulous traveler. no diaper blow-outs or leakage. he took a nap most of the 3 1/2 hour trip and went about 5 hours without a feeding. then, when he was fed, he nonchalantly took a bottle from my dad whilst strapped in his carseat. what a treasure.

it was a typical visit to my sister's. the kids fought to the death over toys, stripped naked, danced around (dare i say "like indians"?) knocking into furniture and each other, and made enough noise to wake the dead.:) but, they are still sweethearts. eme asked to hold "baby jacky" about 4 times i believe. nole made funny faces for jack. ele gave me a big hug unasked for. and that's why i subject myself to visiting them.

on saturday, after eme's gymnastics class, we went to an apple orchard in northfield, mn. it was absolutely everything an orchard should be. even small children can pick apples from the short, plump trees. in a little building there are apple and mn tourist-y foodstuff to buy. i bought 1 dozen hot-off-the-oil sugared apple doughnuts and a carmel apple with fudge. we all wandered out again to where there was a small manmade river and pond among the trees. we sat on wooden benches and ate apple doughnuts and watched the naughty children throw apple cores into the water while seeing how close they could get to the water before my dad and i blew a fuse. :) before we could, in slips ele's foot. oh well, back to the car. on the way i noticed that the rose bushes were still in bloom.

(photo of nole this summer at a park)