Apples, Bubbles and Cousins...

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Cousin Carrie, James, little William, Uncle Brandt and Aunt Sandy came up to spend some time at the Lake Champlain camp, and I was able to finagle a day off of work to hang out with them. It was such a beautiful day that we had to do something outside, so we decided to go apple picking in Shelburne. When we got to the orchard we parked William and Aiden on a blanket under the shade of a MacIntosh tree before proceeding to fill our pick-ur-own bags. Of course we had to give each of them an apple to munch on! William was a little unsure at first, but Aiden pretty much made a sloppy core of his apple in no time. He's got some serious chompers.

Aiden's still do-ragging it... he'll have none of a nice baseball cap like William's. We are going to have to think about a serious southward migration if Aiden thinks he can get through a Vermont winter without wearing a warm hat.

A lot of the apples were out of even the reach of Carrie and James, who are both much taller than average height. I pretty much had them fill my bag, as you can imagine. I'm not sure this picking arrangement was very stable, but the bags did get filled quickly.

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At one point a yellow jacket landed on the part of Aiden's apple he was just about to bite. It was one of those moments that happens in slow motion, I saw the wasp buzz around the apple... land on the apple.... Aiden's mouth opening slowly to take a big bite.... and then, WHAM! Uncle James slapped the apple out of Aiden's hands before he could get stung. And then, "WAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" a cry fest ensued, and Aiden looked at Uncle James very suspiciously for about an hour, not realizing he had been saved from an even greater trauma.

The boys did a great job of "playing" nicely together. Which is to say they stared at each other a lot and didn't fight over toys, so things went really smoothly. It will be much more fun for William, Aiden and Emma when they all get a little older.

Back at the lake house, a calm, warm day was unfolding so we all were convinced to go for one (last?) dip in the lake. Uncle James redeemed himself in Aiden's eyes by creating a bubble spectacle extraordinaire on the lawn for the amusement of the babies.