Revenge of the Apple Festival

Last night our family attended the Apple Festival and Campfire.  We headed out early thinking we would grab a nice dinner together before heading to Rock Creek Regional Park.  It was a good thing we left home early since the DC traffic was horrid.  By the time we got near the park there was little time to enjoy a leisurely dinner, so we opted to stop in to Chipotle for a quicker bite to eat, although it was hardly quick as we were stuck behind an apologetic woman who was placing an order for an army.  While waiting our turn, we had a spontaneous conversation with a lovely Irish lady with a great accent - a conversation that could hardly be avoided since the twins stood two feet in front of her, staring up at her with unblinking eyes.  For some reason, she was a spectacle to them.  Interestingly, I routinely find myself commenting to yet another stranger that they would think my children have never seen other people for how often they stare holes through them.  Thankfully, the twins normally receive a warm reception, which invariably yields smiles and giggles all the way around.

Upon inhaling our dinner, we were out the door, not quite sprinting to the van, but just nearly as we wanted to have as much time as possible to play before sunset.  Certain of my directions, I set out with Koen as my navigator.  My first indication of a problem came when "you have reached your final destination" only to find it was a dead end with only a bicycle path entrance to the park.  Scratching my head, I surmised that I had only to continue driving the park perimeter, which logically should reveal the proper entrance.  Yeah, well. . . this is a rather large park.  After ten minutes of testing my apparently faulty logic, I pulled over and double checked my address.  It turned out I had input the general park address, but not the park's nature center address.  Problem solved, we put on our racing caps and sped off (a whole 5 miles over the speed limit) to the correct address.  We were thrilled to finally get to the festival. . . and only 30 minutes late.

Everyone piled out of the car ready for fun and me with my camera in hand to capture it all.  First stop was the trunk, where I pulled out my handy dandy bug spray.  We were after all entering what appeared to be a 72 acre jungle.  I have to admit I was proud that for once I had remembered to bring the insect repellent.  My kids were finally going to be bug free!  Imagine how loudly my bubble burst when after fighting with the can of bug spray, I had to abandon my attempts at shielding my kids from the mosquitoes because the sprayer was broken.  Well, at this point no one cared because they heard the music spilling through the trees from deep in the forest.  Lisse would have it no other way than to sprint toward the music, which we did.

After clearing the ticket table and repeatedly removing the display apples from Lisse's hands, we headed toward the sound of the banjo.  The kids pointed out every little thing along the way.  They certainly are city kids, but they're fast learners.  Taking out across an open field, they were squealing with joy.

It wasn't long before the field turned into a forest path and Lisse learned her first lesson about avoiding tree roots.  She took a rather dirty tumble, recovered quickly, and still blazed the trail ahead of the boys.

Finding our way into the center of the melee, we looked around and plotted our course of action.  First step, apple-tasting!  Gala and Honey Crisps were among the variety, but the one that caught our eye was the Smokehouse.  It was pretty tasty, as are all apples in our humble opinions - we are just an apple-eatin' family - however, Honey Crisp took the prize.  We then tried our hand at pressing apple cider, making apple pies, eating caramel apples, and creating Johnny Appleseed hats, all while listening to a talented, live bluegrass band singing mostly hymns.

At this point I would normally move on in the story, but I have to pause to contemplate the caramel apple.  Whoever came up with the caramel apple concept must have been a twisted individual, or at least not slightly OCD like me.  It took all of five seconds of watching everyone else walking around gnawing rather unsuccessfully on their miracle grow, massive apples to realize there must be a better way.  Like the perfect marriage of peanut butter and chocolate achieved by the Reese's peanut butter cup, I snagged an apple from the caramel apple stand and stepped ten feet over to the young man cutting apples at the tasting stand.  Voila!  You would have thought I was developing the cure for cancer as people stared at my sliced apples.  No really, didn't McDonald's figure this out not so long ago?  In all fairness, when you have a child who loves apples, but is cursed with braces, you have to improvise.

After all the aforementioned fun, we made our way to the campfire for marshmallow roasting, smores, and a viewing of the classic, animated Johnny Appleseed.  Everything was going well until Lisse melted down over wanting to eat her "marsho" before it was roasted.  She truly never relented on the issue until I took the initiative to create the smore and shove it in her mouth.  At that point, she was like Stitch when he was destroying Lilo's room and she placed the lei around his neck, at which point he fell over backwards and began purring in contentment.  Okay, so Lisse was not quite purring, but I'm fairly certain she reached toddler nirvana.  Nothing like sugaring up your kids just before bedtime.

With the festival itself shaping up nicely, I was quite content that I had provided my kids with such a wonderful opportunity to make a warm memory with Mama.  Feeling quite accomplished that I had achieved my goal, I convinced the kids to leave ahead of the crowd.  We even stopped on the way out of the nature center upon Lisse's request to ogle at the farmer, which is oddly what she persists in calling any red barn she sees.  On the way out to the parking area, she then spied a sign that read "NO VEHICLES."  She was beside herself, "Mama, LOOK!  It's AB's!"  We spent a couple minutes letting her and Karter trace the letters with their fingers.  These were moments of pure joy.

 

Heading out of the park on a slightly declining sidewalk, Lisse began picking up speed.  "Lisse be careful, slow dow. . ."  My words trailed off as she tripped forward, landed on her knees, and rolled forward onto her face, screaming.  Only five feet behind her, I snatched her up with speed and cradled her in my arms, shoving the front of her shirt into her mouth, having already seen the blood pouring from her lip.  There was little light left to the dusky evening and I jogged to the van carrying her, Koen trailing behind holding Karter by the hand and carrying our goodie bags, camera bag, and my cell phone and keys.  Koen was one step ahead of me and had the side door of the van open before I got there with Lisse.  I placed her in her car seat and tried to get a closer look at her face.  I was just realizing the extent of her lip injury when Koen blurted out that one of the bags had torn open and something had fallen out. . . in the dark.

 

Strapping the kids into their car seats, I quickly surveyed the remaining contents of the bag and realized the missing item was my cell phone.  Like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, I began brushing my hands all over the tallish grass on the side of the road where we were parked.  By this time, there was nearly no light whatsoever.  Rather desperately wanting to find my cell phone so I could get Lisse home to doctor her wounds, I stopped a passing parent and asked him to call my phone, not realizing that Koen had his cell phone in his pocket.  As we all searched the grass, Koen called my phone, which was answered by a lady who had found it inside the park.  Koen sprinted back inside the park, secured my phone, and sprinted back to the van.  He had an even greater sense of urgency over the whole incident than I did, even gasping and recoiling with his hand over his mouth upon seeing the blood.  In his mind, we were experiencing an emergency.

Safely back in the van, he used my cell phone to navigate us back to where my internal map could take over and get us home.  Halfway home, Lisse began saying her nose and knee hurt as well, and I reassured her that I would be her doctor once we got home.  Karter quickly jumped on the doctor bandwagon, stating he was going to be Lisse's doctor too.  Minutes into that conversation Lisse stopped crying and said "I'm better now, Mama.  Can I be play a doctor too?"

It was all uphill from there as we finished our trek home, bathed the kids, and had some great play time before bed.  The looks on their faces tell it all.  They just love being together!  Koen adores them, they follow his every move, and they are all pretty much inseparable.  

In hindsight the whole evening could have perhaps been characterized as attending the "get stuck in traffic, shovel your dinner down your throat, get lost, rip your lip off, lose your cell phone" festival!  Thankfully, all these things were punctuated by warm, memorable moments. . . and the smores didn't hurt either.  Like many other days and circumstances, we lived to tell about it.  If such times can end in a photo like the one above of my three kids, I'll take whatever life throws at us.