An Apple a Day
Keeps the Boredom Away, and the child away from the iPad.
"I wanna go to the Niagara Fun Park"
"I wanna go to the Niagara Fun Park"
"I wanna go to the Niagara Fun Park"
This is what I woke up to. No coffee yet or even time to figure out where the heck I placed my glasses last night..
Then when I said no, the wailing began. Actually, more like whining. There's nothing like starting the day with whining.
this is mecca for the 9 and under crowd.
The Niagara fun park is aptly named because if your age is still in the single digits I bet it's the best thing you could do. You see, somebody has had the great idea to rent the end of an empty mall and fill it with very big bouncy houses. (and a lot of insurance policies I would guess)
Back in the day this was the Summit Mall:
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I bet when the developers opened the mall in 1972 they thought they had the best thing ever but now it's this fun park we love and some other things from time to time like party stores or fireworks outlets as the season dictates. The parking lot is grown over so the fact that there's anything there at all is kind of amazing since it's been closed for like 30 years at this point.
What I can't figure out is how it even made it back in 1972? The airport is like a half mile away and there's some residential nearby but not much. But I was still living in the old country then so what do I know? Apparently it was a happening place in it's time:
Back to the whining...
No. We are not going to the fun park. It's going to be 80 degrees out today and we're not going to spend it in an old musty mall with noisy bouncy castles. It's a great activity in the dead of winter, but not in the fall when we're treated to nice weather still.
Then the question begs: what to do with the child? We were going to take her to the pumpkin farm here but it's crazy expensive and we don't know why. It's like Disneyworld pricing there. For a pumpkin farm.
You know what's outdoors and relatively cheap though? Apple picking!
This is a great idea for a few reasons:
- It's cheap - we got out of there for under $20.00
- It's easy to get to but takes a half hour so there's a nice scenic drive but it's not too far so you have to drive around in the middle of nowhere looking for a potty break.
- The apples can turn into pie! And we all like pie around here.
Apple Picking it was. It took a bit of wrangling to get out the door. I have no idea how the time goes from "we've got lots of time" to "we're going to be late" but it does. I sprayed her down with some sunscreen and tossed a hat on her and we were on our way.
Apple picking is probably the easiest of fruit picking to do and we probably done in about 10 minutes. They are about a buck an apple so we both filled our bags with about 8 each and we were ready to go.
But first, there had to be an apple cider slushie because tradition (we've been going every year for over decade now) and of course to sit on haybales and tractors.
We got there at 10:40am and wback home before lunch. If you're looking to take your child to an activity that works with a 5 year old's attention span then apple picking is it.
Maybe next weekend we will go to the fun park.
Pray for rain, little one.
