Cross-post, with updates, from On Living By Learning, 10/16/2007.

A visit to our favorite apple picking farm is a not-to-be-missed Fall ritual. I love walking through the orchard on a crisp, autumn day while munching on Honey Crisp (my favorite!) or Empire apples.

We’ve picnicked beneath the trees on school trips, celebrated birthdays on the lawn, and joined the crowds at the annual Goold Orchard Apple Festival.

I love this place best, however, when we have it to ourselves.

A Recent Visit

It was 4 o’clock, just 1 hour before closing, and all I really wanted was the cider donuts. This was our first visit of the year; however, and the kids weren’t going to leave without picking some apples.

I truly prefer the apples that are picked and bagged for me at the farm store. While I enjoy photographing the kids as they pick apples, I’m too lazy to pick and carry my own apples. I usually end up hauling the youngster’s apples anyway. Could my laziness be a good thing? Take a look at the aptly titled article, Rotten to the Core, for some ideas on what pick-your-own apple orchards tells us about Americans.

Corn Maze Detour

We bought 3 apple picking tote bags (50 cents each), fortified ourselves with a baker’s dozen of the cider donuts, and headed for the orchard.

Now there were just 50 minutes to pick apples, but the kids can’t go past the corn maze without trying to scare themselves silly. They split up to tackle the corn maze and later complained about how freaked out they were. Go figure! On the way back, they did it again.

This time, Alex claimed that he was spooked by a chipmunk who “made” him drop his apple picking haul. What’s next? Giant Killer Bunnies, I suppose.

Goold’s Orchard

We finally made it to the orchard with a whole half hour for apple picking. The children ran to pull the apples right off the trees (dwarf apple trees are the perfect size for kids.) Any parent will tell you that apple picking with children is a multi-faceted activity that involves taste-tests, chases, apple-bombs, apple size comparisons, weird-apple contests, stomping rotten apples, and rolling in the grass. Putting apples in the bag is definitely not the main event.

The Journey Is The Thing

For us, it’s all about process, not product. We had a wonderful time, and we even took home some apples. I think we have enough apples to make apple sauce, but we’ll skip the apple doll idea.

Where To Go:

Goold Orchards Inc

1297 Brookview Station Road

Castleton-on-Hudson, NY 12033

518-732-7317

Map to our farm, click here.

Open: Pick-Your-Own 7 Days 9 am to 4pm Sept1 – Nov 30

Upcoming: 22nd Annual Apple Festival & Craft Show at Goold Orchards – Saturday and Sunday, October 9-10, 2010, 9AM-5PM,

More:

• Pick Your Own Fruit In The Capital Region – Find harvest dates, festivals, and listings of pick-your-own farm in the Capital Region.

Please excuse the mess, or in this case, the blog delays and other bumps in posting while I remodel my blogs.

Over the years, my other blog, On Living By Learning, has been a testing ground where I figure out parenting, family life, personal ambitions, the world, and what I want to write about. It became a hodgepodge of stuff, much like me. Eventually, I noticed that I was writing more and more articles about travel, and that I really enjoyed doing so.

I started Albany Kid early this year thinking that it would be a resource for Capital Region families on fun things to do with kids in New York. But, again, I found myself writing more and more travel articles, and wanting to expand beyond Albany.

It wasn’t until late this summer, when I attended Blogher 2010, the Big Daddy of blog conferences, that I had an epiphany. Even though I’ve been blogging for years, I’ve always struggled to explain what I was doing. I’d tell anyone who asked that I wrote a blog, but I always stumbled trying to describe it. I couldn’t define either blog, or what kind of writer I am. After much pondering and actually taking a hard look at my blogs, I finally got it.

I’m a mommy blogger who loves to write about family travel.

Neither of these is mutually exclusive, but to maintain my sanity I’ve decided to keep them on separate blogs. Albany Kid will be my family travel blog where I write about family adventures in Albany and beyond, and On Living By Learning will remain my mommy blog.

In the future, all of my new travel blog articles will be posted on Albany Kid. Also, over the next week, I’ll cross-post the archived On Living By Learning travel articles so that they’re all in one place.

As we move into the final quarter of Albany Kid’s beta year, I think it’s starting to shape into the family resource that I envisioned. Travel, near and far, is just one of the many fun things we like to do with kids. We’ll soon be sharing lots of other great ideas too!

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-29 http://goo.gl/fb/gAzVY #
• Friend Maker and a Not So Cautionary Tale http://goo.gl/fb/Skxcm #
• Great article on exploring Schenectady's “history of transportation and innovation.” http://fb.me/EQcP8gnz #
• Vote to give this idea 250K: Help Hannah's Hope Fund fund a Clinical Trial for a treatment for GAN #pepsirefresh http://pep.si/cZwVJi #
• Yay! I get to meet new Bloggy Boot Camp Friends BEFORE we get to Philly! http://bit.ly/bjF3ra #
• Packed house for Columbia High School's Meet The Coaches Night. #fb #
• Embarrassed my teen by paying attention to my iPhone during a school pep rally. Let the high school games begin! #
• Need to wean myself from this air conditioner dependency. #fb #
• @ChristineMMTTM The eldest always attended school, but we learned from her experience and homeschooled the younger child. in reply to ChristineMMTTM #
• Listening to Irish Folk Music, got a powerful urge to kick up my heels. #
• Suddenly ravenous after reading Food Photography Secrets Revealed http://bit.ly/aU7jb1 #
• First virtual school in Mass. opens Thursday! via Gifted Homeschoolers Forum http://fb.me/zqgrFaMq #
• What's your pick for essential back to school podcasts? http://fb.me/tOYF1FRC #
• Should I be concerned that AntiSpyware detected 162 potentially bad cookies from Google Chrome? #
• Positive Is How I Live http://bit.ly/d2O9dB #
• On LivingbyLearning: Positive Is How I Live http://goo.gl/fb/2cTAW #
• @DeborahMersino Thanks for the encouragement! in reply to DeborahMersino #
• Interesting predictions for Mommy Blogging gains and trends http://bit.ly/axmM0j #
• Aren’t Summers Short Enough? http://bit.ly/d5Msbm #
• On LivingbyLearning: Aren’t Summers Short Enough? http://goo.gl/fb/vQ8Jd #
• Fancy! (@ Fort orange club) http://4sq.com/d3S0gU #
• Relieving the boredom of fixing the blog categories by watching a sad but charming movie: Marilyn Hotchkiss'… http://fb.me/FcVZEd6k #
• It's a bad movie marathon in the Foyt Home. First it was Kutcher being pathetic in Spread, now it's a time travel teen drama in Crusades. #

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Disembarking the American Airlines jet in Miami we came to a halt behind a woman who stood stock still, staring at a pair of silver doors. Expecting to exit into the terminal, she looked confused, unsure what to do confronted by this barrier. Her son searched the wall around the doors, looking for a sign or an elevator button.

I looked at her, I looked at him. They weren’t moving forward, and they weren’t moving back. I didn’t know what to do either, but I surged forward anyway, and lo and behold, I must have triggered a sensor because the doors opened as if by magic.

In travel, as in life, sometimes it pays off to go ahead, even if you don’t know exactly what to expect or even when your expectations are grim.

Before this last trip to the Virgin Islands, I deliberated over what to pack. With the current American Airlines baggage guidelines, it can be very costly to check luggage. According to the airline’s online charts, I could expect to pay $25 for the first checked bag, and $35 for a second.  Also, any luggage over 65 dimensional inches would be considered oversized, and should incur a $150 fee.

My daughter wanted to pack a skimboard, and my son and I wanted to bring our boogie boards. Typically, these can be checked separately, each incurring its own fee, which given that they are oversized, could have been as high as $150 each way for each item. I happened to own a duffel that could accommodate all three boards, as well as our snorkel equipment. All together, it’s quite light (under the 50lb maximum), but it’s still oversized.

I took a chance anyway because I  knew how difficult and expensive it is to procure this gear on the island, and we lucked out. On the flight to St. Thomas, I was only charged $25, for all three checked bags. On the return, I was charged for two checked bags, but no oversize fee.

In our carry on luggage, we also brought all of our electronics: laptops, iPods, cameras, and all related chargers. Now, you might think that electronics are not necessary for a Caribbean vacation, and you might be right, except that I needed mine for a book writing project. And, the kids needed theirs to finish a school project and for the distance learning portion of their scuba diving certification.

There was another added benefit to bringing the electronic gear. With so many components to be charged, I packed a surge protector so that we would have sufficient electrical outlets. This turned out to be a lifesaver when we were waiting at the airport, needing to charge our cellphones, but having to compete with other travellers over the few available outlets. Our surge protector quickly became a friend maker as we shared our extra outlets.

Now, I’m not recommending packing everything including the kitchen sink, but we found an upside to packing the “nonessential” items that were important to us. In addition to making new friends with the surge protector and even with the beach gear, these items made our stay infinitely more pleasant and enjoyable.

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-22 http://goo.gl/fb/GS5db #
• Daydream Weddings In The Virgin Islands http://goo.gl/fb/69dC4 #
• Daydream Wedding In The Virgin Islands http://goo.gl/fb/hsMZL #
• Get Scuba Certified With Kids In The Virgin Islands http://goo.gl/fb/dyLDb #
• Back in Albany now, expect to see NY posts any minute now (after I finish catching up on our summer travel adventures!) #

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It was my husband’s dream to get the entire family scuba diving certified. Me? I’d have been happy to explore the Caribbean reefs via snorkel, no tanks, no expense, no forty feet below the ocean surface

He begged and pleaded, and then he persuaded the kids to work on me, until I had to give in and at least look into the possibility during our extended stay in the Virgin Islands. Working in his favor was that the same outfit that scuba certified us back in 2002, Admiralty Dive Center, was still going strong on St. Thomas. Although under new management, our original Dive Instructor, Fishbutt, would still join us on our dives.

I knew my fourteen-year-old was more than ready for the PADI Junior Open Water course. She’s been pleading for this for at least two years, since her first introductory dive in the Bahamas. My concern was that her younger brother wasn’t a strong enough swimmer or sufficiently mature for the serious nature of this endeavor.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to make this decision alone. The not-so-new owner of Admiralty, Duane, gave my almost-ten-year-old a pool test to see if he could handle the swimming requirements, and if he was comfortable in the water. He also assessed if my son would be a willing learner who would listen attentively to instruction. My son’s swimming skills turned out to be adequate to the task, but the latter item gave us pause. However, he was very eager to learn, and willing to try to be a good student.

Both kids did great, learning quickly and easily. It was exhausting because they had to do the e-learning portion on a very slow computer at night after a full day of sun and surf. The entire distance learning portion takes six hours, but it was spread over several days. They also had to learn the basics in two pool sessions, combined with a shore dive. Finally, they had to complete learning tasks over four boat dives on two days, but that was the fun part for all of us.

Actually, my husband and I benefited from this experience as well. Neither of us had done any diving in long enough that we both needed a refresher, which we got as we tagged along on the instructional dives.

The teen impressed the heck out of all of us, demonstrating the ability to think clearly underwater, and showing the kind of good judgement that I wish was in evidence all the time! Her younger brother also turned out to be an excellent scuba diver, although he’s not ready to be turned loose by the dive master.  He still has some growing up to do, and although he’s done well, it’s hard to know how he’ll react to any situation.  I have to say, I was amazed by his calm acceptance of sharks in the water, even a ginormous eight-foot nurse shark. And, on the last day of diving, his mask repeatedly filled with water, the bane of many a diver, but he just cleared it as he had been taught, and went on.

My husband’s dream came true this summer. Not only did our children earn their first scuba certification, I also ended up rediscovering why I love to dive in the warm, clear waters of the Caribbean coral reefs. As my son explains it, unlike snorkelling, a scuba diver gets to interact with the living ocean environment. Today, we didn’t just see a sea turtle, we swam alongside of it.

Related:

• Is Diving Too Dangerous For Kids?
• PADI Scuba Experiences for Kids

The promise of a daydream wedding brings many a bride to the Caribbean. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, you can find eight or more weddings taking place daily. Many of these are for island visitors who desire a romantic beach wedding, without the cost and stress of a Bridezilla event.  On a recent picture postcard perfect morning, my family was privileged to attend one of these island weddings at the Emerald Beach Resort.

The last time I attended a Caribbean wedding, it was an extravagant affair. This was the early 1990s and I was one of nearly twenty bridesmaids, all gussied up in poufy bubblegum pink organza dresses, white gloves, and lacquered updos. The ceremony, which like many West Indian weddings started two hours after the time noted on the invitations, took place at the Catholic church where many of us had attended high school, and was followed with a reception at one of the more luxurious hotels. One of these days, I’ll have to scan the photos so that I can share the magnificence of this event, but suffice it to say that, from carving stations to ice sculptures, not a single detail was overlooked.

Decorative details were not necessary at the beach wedding.  While beach weddings can be customized to suit individual taste, our friend chose the basic package offered by the resort which included just a simple bamboo arch on the beach. Against the stunning backdrop of jewel tones ocean and sparkling crystal sand, anything more would have been redundant.

It was also one of the most relaxed and enjoyable weddings that my family has attended. Since the decorations and other details were so simple, there were no delays and the wedding ceremony commenced pretty much on time.

After the ceremony, the kids enjoyed monkeying around while the professional photographer captured the wedding party in variety of poses, in and out of the water. Of course, given the natural beauty of the setting, us non-professionals did pretty well too!

Much of the wedding planning was done spur of the moment, but all the essentials were covered. Leaving the beach, we headed to my other family home, where I usually stay when I’m in St. Thomas. On the new patio, we enjoyed a catered reception that included local favorites of stew chicken, fish, pigeon peas and rice, sweet potato, vegetables, and salad. The portions were generous, and most of us returned for seconds.  Still, somehow, we found room for the wedding cake, a delicious white almond layer cake with a passion fruit filling.

Good friends, good food, and a gorgeous backdrop ensured that the promise of a daydream wedding was kept beautifully.

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-15 http://goo.gl/fb/MBXQV #
• Tips For Driving In The Virgin Islands http://goo.gl/fb/AcYeh #

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Visitors to the Virgin Islands who hunger for the thrills of roller coaster rides will not be disappointed. All they have to do is rent a car, head up into the mountains, and keep a few rules in mind.

Rules of the Road

• Drive on the left. It’s easy to forget when on a road that is so narrow that it doesn’t look like it could possibly hold two lanes, but keep left even then.
• Beware of narrow roads. Avoiding a head on collision on narrow roads takes special vigilance. Locals, accustomed to the roads, will hurdle along a breakneck speeds, and the neophyte’s best bet is to drive slow and hug the sides. Then, when you see a car approaching, pull over to whatever scrap of space you can find, and let them pass.
• Be careful on the dips. On St. John, there are a series of “Dip” signs that have been embellished with commentary regarding the nature of the dip. That’s where you’ll find “Crab Dip” and “Skinny Dip.” On St. Thomas, the dips are usually unmarked, but there is one near my family home that should be labelled, “Dipzilla.” When you encounter one of these dips, go slow and take it at whatever angle minimizes exposure to the deepest part of the dip. Hopefully, this will help you avoid doing serious damage to the vital parts of your vehicle.

• Honk. – See the driveway in the photo above? There are many blind corners on these island roads. Your best defence is to honk your horn and hope for the best.
• Pump your brakes. – Heading downhill, you’ll encounter terrifyingly steep curves over frightening cliff drop offs, and the natural reaction will be to keep your foot on the brake. Don’t do it! This can quickly destroy the brakes. Take it easy. Put the car in low gear, and simply pump the brakes.
• Be patient, you’re on island time. – It is not unusual to encounter a conversation taking place on the road between two drivers, or a driver and pedestrian. This is not the time to honk your horn, unless you enjoy being soundly cursed. Be patient, be polite, you’ll get to your destination all in good time.
• Watch out for critters. – The pedestrian traffic on the islands includes iguanas, goats, and chickens. Mostly, these creatures manage to avoid becoming traffic victims, but not always. And, let me tell you, iguana road kill is not a pretty sight.

For adventurous spirits, renting a car is the best way to find all the off the beaten track destinations in the Virgin Islands. Once you get used to driving on the left hand of the road, it might even be the most exciting part of your vacation!

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-08 http://goo.gl/fb/Z0LQD #
• Confession: I snuck a pickle out of the jar that I bought for my hubbie from NYC Pickle Guys. Yum! Thanks! @TechyDad http://bit.ly/9q88VY #
• Will be missing my Albany home as we visit my childhood home in the Virgin Islands. #
• Celebrating with the Stars at Madame Tussaud’s in New York City #BlogHer10 http://goo.gl/fb/I88s8 #
• @TechyDad I'm thinking of going to Type A, will drive Suburban, & can offer a ride. in reply to TechyDad #
• @ShePosts I'll check when I can get on my computer. My email is sandrafoyt@yahoo.com in reply to ShePosts #
• @KathyCeceri Finishing another book project? #
• Boarding flight to St. Thomas, always exciting to go home, even if I'm staying with my mother. #
• @KathyCeceri That's my goal, to exhaust everyone, including myself! in reply to KathyCeceri #
• @ChristineMMTTM For now, they're in the elearning stage of scuba certification, but they're fascinated. in reply to ChristineMMTTM #
• Sorry about that! I'll fix it. #
• My Virgin Islands Home http://goo.gl/fb/s5HsR #
• Udder Delight Shakes Bring All The Tourists To The Yard http://goo.gl/fb/HujJB #

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