Chubby Thighs - 1, Abbey's Old Pants - 0

Our nice little Saturday included a trip to Apple Holler in Racine and Barthel's Farm in Mequon. 

Apple Holler turned out to be Hollering Child Hell. Infant explosion. Crying everywhere. We were pretty much the only people without a child or grandchild attached to a limb. Part of the Holler festivities included:

  A country band

"Golden Goat Bridge" and petting zoo

Crazy Corn Tunnel (?)

A hay ride (think we'll pass), child's maze, dirt biking (rephrase: tricycle dirt biking)

Jon: "That looks terribly boring."

Why, yes, Jeeves, it does.

But there were amazing photo opportunities!

I brought my Sears bag in with me. I have a feeling we will regret these two.

And . . . a restaurant. Oh yeah, plus the $40 fee to pick the actual apples. Flat rate. The bag was so large we would still be carting leftovers to Florida in 2010. We decided to skip the apple picking and since we couldn't participate in 99.9% of the activities, we chose to eat. No, we do not look at the restaurant's menu. Mistake. One: It's a BUFFET. (I hate buffets. I don't care if it's a table of foi gras, filet mignon, truffles and everything ever made from corn and butter . . . okay, I will reconsider that last one.) Two: It's an enclosed space full of aforementioned hollering hell spawn.

We lined up and observed the food: apple fritters, apple biscuits, apple maple syrup, apple french toast . . . eggs, quiche, pancakes, gravy, bacon, ham, sausage and the piece de resistance . . . "cheesy potato casserole." Let's break that down into what it really was: frozen, shredded hash browns mixed with nacho cheese sauce. So sick and SO FREAKING GOOD. Seriously. Fortunately (and unfortunately for the thighs), I asked what the ingredients were only after I had polished off one plate and was in the midst of eating round two. (Really, Abbey?) It was so right and so wrong all at once.

No, you can't see the cheesy casserole. I ate it all.

We grabbed our growing bellies and left, not one apple in hand between the two of us. But since it was apple picking day (and Jon said he absolutely would not visit another orchard after today) "we" decided to head 45 minutes in the opposite direction (back past our house and then some) to another, less child-friendly farm, Barthel's. This is an authentic apple orchard. 1 shopping bag, $16 dollars, and 7 different kinds of apple trees. Mission completed! (Photos in another post.)

Yeah, have we eaten one apple yet? No. In the words of our Milwaukee friend who joined us for football on Sunday:

"I don't eat fruit."

There is virtually no chance in Hades my jeans will be making it through the winter. Elastic waistbands and scurvy, here we come.