FALL!!!!!

I fully believe that Texas does most things better than every other state... Barbeque, Sunsets, Being Awesome... but New York definitely has a leg up on what Fall should look like. We had a little snow storm at the end of October (which NEVER happens apparently-- so of course it happened while I'm here, per usual) and it snapped the trees into action and they started changing into some amazing colors. Here's what I see out my window...

I know the camera can't fully capture it... but it's beautiful and I love walking while the leaves are actually falling all around and I'm in appropriate fall attire that I can wear without sweating and longer than two days, as opposed to in my motherland :)

Something else I love about fall, is that there is a thing here called "Apple Picking". Yes, my friends, this means you romp about in an orchard, pick some apples, each some apple cider doughnuts, and feel incredibly festive. I had the opportunity to go apple picking TWICE this year-- once with Leticia and two of her friends and then again with my friend Heather and the foster care girls mentoring group we started. Sadly I can't post most of the pics from the foster care girls group because of rules about posting pics, but I'll give you a few snap shorts of my apple picking experience...

 When we got to the orchard, we were informed that there were no more apples left... EXCUSE ME?! No... we got a ZipCar and trekked across the countryside... we are PICKING some APPLES!! So naturally, we snuck into the orchard and scavenged apples off the ground and plucked the lonely ones left in the tree. It was the Christian thing to do, obviously.

           

 Apparently an action shot was necessary.

 This is a sign one of the foster care girls wrote while we were shopping around in Grand Central Station waiting for our train to get there. Mercy First is the name of the foster care agency we volunteer with. These girls are amazing and it has been so much fun to hang out with them! I wish I could post their beautiful faces but you'll just have to use your imagination :)

 The orchard we took the girls to thankfully still had apples and was set up like a huge harvest festival, complete with this terrifyingly large black cat...

 And a hay ride!!! None of the girls had ever gone on a hay ride so they were REAL pumped about it. I think there was screaming... I'm not quite sure why. But we all survived and it was beautiful.

I think this picture is legal since it's just their backs. We had to use these long picking sticks and I think the girls had a lot of fun filling up our apple bag. I wasn't exactly good at maneuvering the picker so I just started trying to juggle the apples and ended up hitting some children on accident. Oops! I should probably stick to holding the bag.

Soooo in summary fall here is awesome and apple picking is something that has to become a tradition in my life. That's all there is to it!