Apple Photo Shoot

I got the camera out and tried to get some pictures of Ira in the beautiful sunlight this weekend. I need to brush up on getting the settings right to capture the light, most of them ended up a little overexposed. I decided to see what I could do with Picasa's online photo editing software, picnik. I was impressed with the range and flexibility they give you for editing with their free version. I'm too cheap right now to pay for their premier offering. Here is what I ended up with, you can see the originals in our 2011 album.

The number one comment we get on Ira is along the lines of, 'His eyes are so beautiful and blue'.

 I love the apple juice drool rolling off the bottom of his chin.

New things Ira has been doing:

- Babbling long strings of sounds that are almost sound like words.

- Relaxing in his high chair when we feed him with one leg up.

- Walking whenever he can, he's really getting the hang of it.

- Putting food in containers, like bowls, then holding a fork or spoon and smashing the food in the bowl.

- Getting more teeth

Pilgrimages

We love ice-cream and so we made our pilgrimage to Ben & Jerry's original factory in Northern Vermont.

Getting There

 We left a warm blue sky Connecticut with our hopes high and camp ground reserved. Just before pulling into camp at 9:30pm the rain started to come down hard. Upon arrival we opted to transform our little 2-door Honda Civic into a bed instead of putting up a tent on the already wet ground in the pouring rain. It was an interesting night.... Sharon says that she felt just like the Princess and the Pea, only the pea was a spare tire and the 100 mattresses was a skinny piece of foam. 

But I think Ira loved it. He is such a good traveling kid.

Fall Colors, local farms, and Applefest

Before visiting the factory we took some back roads and visited a small cheese shop, sooo good. The owner told us about a local 'Applefest' going on up the hill, to the right, and the third 'driveway' to the left. We  checked it out.

 They were making some Apple Cider. You can see the apple dicer in the background and the apple 'musher' or three garbage disposals mounted on a table

They poured the mush onto a press and squeezed the apple juice out for the cider.  They used the cider to make some amazing donuts and cider syrup.  We also got some local goat milk caramel sauce.  Yum.

The fall colors were great even though the peak was a week earlier and the storms during the week had brought a lot of the leaves down.

Some creative Grafiti out in the middle of nowhere VT. We thought it was funny though. 

Ben & Jerry's Factory

 Ben & Jerry's had a cow directing parking traffic, perfect.

The weather was a little brisk, but it's never too cold for ice-cream, right? The tour was pretty fun, the best part was the free samples at the end. The flavor of the day was Chocowlate Chip. Vanille Ice-cream with fudge bits shaped like cows, pretty tasty.

 Father and Son pose in sheer happiness.

Sharon, VT

We drove right by Sharon, VT on our way to Ben & Jerry's so on our way home we decided to stop by, not because Sharon shares it's name.

 It is the birth place of Joseph Smith, Jr. A man we believe to be called of God to be a prophet in these modern times; given authority to speak and reveal the will of God and to bring men closer to Christ.

 There is a nice visitors center, this monument, and a few old remnants of the houses his parents and grandparents lived in.