Happy 4th of July!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!

We spent the majority of the day in Yakima, Washington, at a cherry orchard before meeting up with our family friends for a good old fashioned BBQ  =)  It was an all day long event--starting at 7 am and ending well past my bedtime haha--and that's why I didn't get to blog yesterday.

Anyway, the orchard we visited is called 'Barrett Orchards', and it was a pretty large orchard with a nice pick of cherries.  The only thing was that we had to rent one of the step ladders that were $5 because most of the cherries on the lower branches were already picked over.  It was free admission, and you could eat as many cherries as you want for free there, but the ones you wanted to bring back were priced by weight.  It was fun getting to pick them off the tree, and I swear the cherries we ate at the orchard tasted better than the ones we brought back!  haha  So here are some photos from yesterday!

Into the forest we go!!

It was actually pretty chilly when we started because it was pretty early in the morning,,,  but of course, once we started picking fruit and the sun started coming out, it warmed up nicely!  I know, I know, I'm not wearing red white and blue. I thought I would wear the tank top I made from an old T-shirt for the orchards because I thought I would get sweaty, then change for the BBQ  =)  The tank top was so easy to make, and I will be posting a tutorial soon so if you like how it looks, you can recycle your old T-shirts too!

pick and eat.  repeat.   

helping daddy with the picking while he climbed up the ladder.  but mostly, eating cherries that he handed off to me  haha

Look at these beauties!!!

Mommy even got in the action  haha   She couldn't climb of course, but we were able to find a few trees that had cherries at her level =)

It's one of the strangest things.  You look up at the cherry tree, and you see so many cherries, but then as soon as you get on top of the ladder, they disappear!  It's the weirdest thing.  So you always have to use teamwork lol  one showing and one picking  ;)

so sunny..

Towards the end of our picking spree, we noticed these lovelies at the very top of the tree, and we could only reach it if we got on the very top of the ladder.  And guess who got the job of climbing to the very top? me.

This may not look very high, but let me tell you. hooo boy!  It was a pretty tricky business.  but completely worth the effort!  the cherries up there were SO amazingly sweet!  I guess because they get all the sun?  All I know is that they were the best cherries I have ever tasted!

Our hard work  =)

It was such a fun day, and we definitely had a blast out there, but it has also made me realize just how much work goes into getting the fruit to our tables every day.  I mean, I was so tired after only a couple of hours!  I can't imagine how difficult it must be for people to do it for hours on end.  So thank you, farmers, for all of the work you do! =)

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th, and have a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny