Family Time

Fall, in all its splendor, has finally fell in Greenville. The trees turn slowly here, creating a fireworks effect with green centers and orangey-red tips. In the spirit of fall, my parents and I decided to go apple-picking on Saturday. I know what you’re thinking- they came from Michigan to South Carolina and you’re going apple-picking?! That’s like me driving twelve hours up to Pittsburgh to buy some peaches. But actually, North Carolina is the 4^th-largest producer of apples in the United States (or so the Visitor’s Center tells me). At any rate, the weather was perfect, the scenery divine, and I came home with more apples than I’ll ever know what to do with.


Apples are far and away my favorite fruit. I love everything about them, from their shiny red peels to their down-home American scent to their juice-rolling-down-your-chin goodness. Apple pie, apple crisp, applesauce, apple cider, dried apple chips, apple leather (like fruit rolls ups) caramel apples, caramel apple suckers… you name it, I love it.

Speaking of things I love, one of the best things about a visit from my parents is the virtual cornucopia of goodies they bring me. The following is an incomplete, but accurate list of what fell out of the back of the station wagon this time:

• a turkey baster
• 2 (more) bikes
• a space heater
• the movie Dan in Real Life*
• a coat rack
• 2 windshield ice scrapers (question mark? this is South Carolina...)
• my yearbook
• 1 (large) bag of dirt
• 10 pounds of deli meat
• a crockpot
  

And finally, my favorite quote of the weekend…

mom: "didn't MargaretAnn commit suicide?"
dad: "whaaa?"
mom: "Oh, no, wait. She had leukemia. That's right."

*neither of my parents have any idea where this came from. When asked about it, they both replied “I don’t know, I’ve never seen that before- isn’t it yours?” I explained to them that I hadn’t even seen the movie until I got it from my netflix this summer, and I certainly never owned a copy. We asked my brother if it had possibly accidentally ended up in my parents’ stuff when they visited a few weeks ago, but nope. My mom thinks she may have accidentally stolen it from one of her students.