October is My Favorite Month ~ New Traditions

My goal, as a mom, is to instill the same family values that I experienced as a child. Values that include the importance of traditions, the acceptance of everyonenbsp;i{family or not},/inbsp;and fun.br /br /Every October is the beginning of many of those traditions which include playing at a pumpkin farm, eating candy apples, and lots of baking. This year we decided to attend the Apple Festival that is held every year in Ellijay, GA.br /br /I had never heard of this festival until this year i{which is surprising since we’ve been in this state for 7 years}/i. I saw someone mention it on Facebook and I looked it up. Suddenly it became clear to me why some families we knew would spend a weekend in the North Georgia Mountains. This festival, is a big draw along with thenbsp;copiousnbsp;apple farms that dot the foothills of the blue ridge mountains.br /br /Last Saturday, we packed up the brood and headed North for the day. Since we had never been there we did not know what to expect. I thought it was supposed to be big, but then we came upon a little street festival. Not knowing this was a little off-shoot of the main festival, we stopped and feasted on the goodies that they offerednbsp;i{fresh apples withnbsp;caramel, chicken on a stick, fried potatoes}.nbsp;/iWhile walking in the main downtown we saw a booth for a place called the Little Red Barn. Since we had walked this festival in 10 minutes, we headed off to the Little Red Barn to pick some apples.br /br /After purchasing homemadenbsp;raspberrynbsp;jam and honey, we headed to the apple picking “pick-up” area. Each of my children had their little baskets as we climbed aboard the tractor wagon and journeyed up and down hills to get to the orchard.br /br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fOV1csm_OmY/TptAgZVtQWI/AAAAAAAAAsY/QRxnLxu6F4A/s1600/DSC_0952.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”320″ src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fOV1csm_OmY/TptAgZVtQWI/AAAAAAAAAsY/QRxnLxu6F4A/s320/DSC_0952.JPG” width=”320″ //a/divbr /br /Stepping off the tractor and looking at the apple trees brought me back to my youth where my cousins and I would climb an apple tree and eat the fruit while lazily sitting on a limb.br /br /My kids loved it! They had a great time picking the juicy apples. We would laugh as they filled their baskets only to have some of their prizes roll down the hill. They experienced the joy of biting into a freshly picked apple with juice running down their chins.br /br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JGMQxSpkDcY/TptAZ3BEKsI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/ZTbqN_SjdyM/s1600/DSC_0971.JPG” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”212″ src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JGMQxSpkDcY/TptAZ3BEKsI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/ZTbqN_SjdyM/s320/DSC_0971.JPG” width=”320″ //a/divbr /After leaving the orchard we started heading home until we hit the REAL Apple Festival. i{We would have smacked our heads in a Duh moment if we had left the area without finding the real thing.}/inbsp;It was a nbsp;plethora of arts and crafts and food. We only had 2 hours till it shut down for the night. We wandered around taking in all the goodies people offered: apple dumplings with ice cream, foot-long corn dogs, and fried apple pies.br /br /Yum. Yum. Yum.br /br /It was a messy, delicious time where we played as a family: gathering 3 dozen apples, taking in the beauty of mountainnbsp;foliagenbsp;in the fall, and having 3 children saying, “This was a great day we should do it again next year.” These are the memories I want my children to have. The Octobers where we spent time outside and together doing something fun.nbsp;nbsp;Traditions of fall.br /br /a href=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” target=”_blank”img alt=”Anna” border=”0″ src=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” //a