An apple a day....

We had so much fun on Saturday picking apples! We took off early for Elijay and visited R & A orchards to pick our own apples! The drive up was beautiful - we are so lucky to live so close to the scenic North Georgia mountains. As we got closer to Elijay, we really noticed the leaves on the trees were changing to vibrant reds and yellows - what a beautiful time of the year it is!

When we got to the orchard, we heard a quick story about the family who started the orchard and were instructed as to which varieties were ready to be picked this weekend. We had a great time exploring the orchard and picked a variety of Rome, Golden Delicious, Wineman Maysap, and Granny Smith apples. Lily and Bear were great apple pickers - I think they picked a pretty good selection.

Lily showing off her apple picking skills

Bear was so proud of the apples he picked!

Tugging to get "the perfect apple".

Bear found a Granny Smith (there weren't too many of these left on the trees)

Sweet Babies!

After picking our apples, we wandered around the orchard store for a bit. Mammy had requested Mutsu apples, so we picked up a bag of those as well as some bakery treats - apple cider donuts and apple bread! YUMMY! (As a side note, we bought a dozen donuts...as of this morning, there might be 3 left - delicious!) This orchard was perfect for a quiet family day - it wasn't as crowded as other bigger orchards or the Apple Festival and there was no fee to pick. You only paid for what you picked.

When we left the orchard, we decided to make the short drive over to Amicola Falls State Park. I've heard from friends that this is a beautiful place to hike and picnic, but had never been before. With a 4 year old and a 2 year old, I wasn't prepared to hike, but since we were close we decided to go over and see the waterfall. We drove first to the top of the mountain to see the top of the waterfall from an overlook. There were picnic tables set up around this area so we decided to first sample one of our treats from the orchard.
Lily enjoying her apple cider donut

We then walked over the overlook - absolutely beautiful! We spent a little while watching the water tumble down the falls and then decided to move along. There is a path that leads down to the base of the falls that the kids really wanted to try but it is 439 steps down - and then we would have had to come back up. We went down a few flights of stairs and Lily saw several kids crying and being carried and decided she didn't want to go all the way down.


View from the top of the falls

Taking in the view

We drove around the park for a bit, found a few streams and a playground. It was a short hike in to the see base of the falls and by this point, Bear was quickly tiring so we decided not to. We packed up, hit Chick-fil-a for lunch and headed home! What a fun way to spend a perfect fall morning!