Royal Harvest

When Aubree turned eight, she wanted to celebrate by going to visit our friends in Royal City.  Let me tell you, Royal City in the fall was spectacular! We've been itching to get back at that time of year ever since, and were finally able to go this October. 

We love Royal and all our friends there so much, that I always yearn to take my friends and family out to experience a little slice of heaven.  This time around, we took a day off of school, and with the Harps, trekked over the mountains to spend a day experiencing a day at the farm during harvest time.

I cannot overstate how generous and loving and wonderful are the Franks and the Allreds.  Every time we visit, they go above and beyond to make us feel welcome and taken care of and spoiled, yet still manage to make it seem like somehow it's us that's doing a favor for them! 

Our first stops on our Harvest Tour were to the apple orchards to glean.  Since apples become ripe at different times, we had better luck in some orchards than others, but were able to pick Golden Delicious, Granny Smith's, Red Delicious (only Aubree was interested in getting Red Delicious apples), Pink Ladies, Honey Crisp, Fugi, and Aztecs. 

We filled our trunks with bags and boxes of apples!

Aubree and Jordyn

We also had the chance to watch potatoes be sorted and stored in an enormous, refrigerated storing facility.  It was fascinating to watch.  First, the potatoes are harvested from the fields and put into dump trucks.  The dump trucks drive a little ways down the road, where they're connected to a conveyor belt.  As the potatoes come off the truck, a group of workers pulls out rocks and rotten potatoes.  

 

The rest move on down the belt until they're shot systematically into 30' high piles. The kids decided it would be a pretty fun job to be the guy with the remote who controls the robotic arm of the end of the conveyor belt.

The workers were unbelievably nice.  One in particular, went out of his way to let the kids be involved in the process and "help." 

Some of the potatoes were HUGE.  Thane found himself a knobby one, and was quite thrilled to take it home.

Following our harvest adventures, we went back to Ashlee's and the kids had another chance to run in to park-like sprinklers and jump on the trampoline and check out the newly completed (and totally fabulous) tree-house. 

Sharing the afternoon with cousins made it that much sweeter!

As if all that wasn't enough, our group split up and some got to go four-wheeling, while others took a quick tour of the dairy. 

dare-devil T fell on his nose immediately after I took this picture

We ended the day treated to an excellent, early dinner by Ashlee, then we hopped back in our cars for the drive home.  It's a lot of driving to go there and back in one day, but so, so worth it.