Today... in pictures.

Besides family, when we moved out to North Carolina, one thing we knew we were going to miss was the yearly tradition of going apple picking. You've read about our trips before and how much fun we had on them! After snooping around though, we found that there are several apple orchards just a scant two hour drive from our new house here in Charlotte - score! Usually, we would have to wait until late September or early October back in Minnesota for picking, but here? The apples are ready, now!

Here is one we went to today... Sky Top Orchards, located in Flat Rock.

Upon getting out of the car, you had a sign with rules... I guess they had problems with apple throwing in the past?

The next item we came across before we ventured out into the trees was this fun bell... you can hear the bong it made from a fair distance!

Isn't the grove beautiful?

Here's Gus and I with an empty bucket - you can see I'm intent on filling it up!

They had many other fruit here other than apples, including peaches and these fantastic grapes...

Also, animals were abound and Gus couldn't get enough of this one!

One container filled, with Honeycrisp apples - go us!

Oh, and if you're wondering about my feet, what's covering them would be these...

They are called Vibram Five Fingers - I'm transitioning to barefoot running and these are the closest you can get to being barefoot, but still have your feet somewhat protected! I'm running barefoot, but use these for errands and whatnot. You may not think so at first, but I have to say, these are so much more comfortable than shoes EVER were for me. My knees have thanked me too. They are definitely also a conversation starter!

Once we had the car packed up, we headed into the shop to browse some more when we came across this...
Gus's short-haired twin! Crazy! They had never seen another one that looked like their pup.

We went back out to look around since the apples were in the car and Gus wouldn't cooperate when Jeff got his picture taken - see him hiding in the corner?

However, he was fine with me when we were at the top, overlooking the lovely view! Guess he picked his favorite... hee hee!

All said and done, we picked just shy of 30 pounds (coming to just about $1 a pound, by the way), with the majority of them being Golden Delicious, Fuji and Honeycrisp.

While we still miss being able to pick with our family, it looks like we may have just started our own new tradition out here!