Fall Charm in Hickory

When Brian and his parents headed to South Bend for the Notre Dame/State football game the weekend before Halloween, the kids and I headed to Hickory for some good grandparent time and some charming Fall activities. Heather had mentioned apple picking, and Mom had mentioned a Fall Festival at their church- YES sign us up!

After a hellacious road trip (four different traffic jams and Luke screaming), I was questioning whether we should have made the trip at all. But I quickly realized I made the right decision. After some park time and a pizza dinner, we took the girls on a "Halloween night walk" around the block.  SO FESTIVE. Dad and Heather live in a quaint area that apparently really gets into Halloween. All the houses were decorated with orange lights, giant spiders, graveyards, etc. We took flashlights, Addie wore her jammies, and we headed off into the night to explore...the girls thought the whole thing was super cool (and I did too). 

The next morning we drove up to Morganton for some apple picking. Okay, I now officially have a new favorite Fall activity! I had never picked apples before, but now will do it every year because it was that charming. :) Let me explain...

Apple cider doughnuts...

wagons for your apple stash (or kids)...

apple trees loaded down with fruit...my favorite was the gold rush variety. We brought home a huge bag of them and ate them all!

A wagon ride all over the property where we got a history lesson of the orchard...

ate some more apples...

enjoyed the prettiest scenery (can you spot the church steeple in the background?)...

and wrestled a wild baby who insisted on crawling where he wasn't supposed to go!

They also had cows and wild turkeys roaming and trees changing colors! So fun. We got back to the country store and bought apple butter, apple cider, and apple cake. I'm telling you Apple Hill Orchard in Morganton is the place to go! 

From apple picking, we headed straight to St. Stephens church (Mom and Baba's church and the church I grew up in). They were hosting a new event this year- a community Fall Festival (to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Reformation), and we wanted to check it out. Especially when I found out that Mom was in charge of face painting. :)

Again- such a charming event! Perfect Fall weather, hot dogs, a cake walk, face painting, a fire truck, a bounce house, games, prizes, and church members so proud to be reaching out to the community in that special way. And I got to see some guys (and first boyfriend!) I used to go to church with about 20 years ago.

Who knew Mimi was such the artist? So cute. We shut down the Fall Festival (literally this kind old man let Luke be the last person in the bounce house and then they deflated it) and then headed back to Mimi's for some football and a turkey dinner. I'm telling you we could not have packed more Fall fun into one day if we tried. :)

On Sunday, after yet another early morning with Luke...

and getting ready for the first really cool day of the year, we had lunch and then headed back to Raleigh. Once again, the road trip did not go well (only 3 traffic jams this time instead of 4) but I didn't care- we had such a neat weekend, it was well worth the traffic headache!