Apple Picking Season and Cross Country Races

We did our first stop at the local apple orchard for the season this past weekend. There were a lot of bees this year and they wanted to chase us down. Sunnybrook Apple Orchard is our favorite spot because we can easily bike over from our house. They also let you wash off an apple and eat it right away which is not the way typical orchards run. Our favorite this year are the Zestar but the Sweet Tango came in a close second.

Besides biking, the girls have been running around the neighborhood on their own to train for some of their cross country meets. It is nice to see on Emma's phone their current location. Perhaps I forgot to mention but Emma got glasses and contacts over the summer. She had the glasses for two weeks and then went straight to contacts. She hates wearing the glasses but we all think they look good on her.

For their first race, the girls went to River Falls and actually ran through a river that was up to their chest. They said it was a hard run to start with but definitely something different to experience. They said the water was really cold but it felt okay because it was still really hot out. Both girls came in around middle of the group for this race. This was the perfect race for throwing out old running shoes after the race was complete. Mom is not quite sure about all the tongue sticking out pictures but that is the way Emma likes to take them when she does a selfie. The best part for her this year is that there is a bus that drives the girls to all the meets. When we were at Liberty we were always trying to find carpools or drive the girls ourselves. Thank goodness for buses!

The girls have gotten into baking a few things this fall. They made blueberry protein muffins to start.

They turned out well so then they decided to mix it up and use the frozen cherries we had in the freezer. Those turned out well too.

Emma did try to make her own protein bars for after cross country but they took a long time to make and were so sticky when pouring them onto the sheets that we decided the best route for those was to just buy the Rx bars at the store.