Finally, some cool weather has allowed us to ENJOY doing things outside. I don't know how many more days in the 90s I could have handled. Luckily a storm blew through on Friday night and we had a picture perfect weekend! 

Our first stop was a trip to the zoo on Saturday. We've enjoyed many visits to the St. Louis Zoo over the years, but we excited to find a new exhibit -- an underwater tunnel to see the Sea Lions! The line wasn't too long, and it sure was fun to walk under the water and see the sea lions swimming. I'm not sure if Matthias knew what to make of it, but he loves getting rides in the backpack, so he was a happy camper.

We've been wanting to go apple picking, but just couldn't bring ourselves to do it in the heat that past few weeks. So we seized the opportunity this afternoon and drove in to IL for another family adventure.

I have to say that, although it was a wonderful day, we were spoiled last year getting to pick Honeycrisp apples right off the tree. As I remember it, pretty much every apple we saw last year was perfect, large, and blemish free. Today we got to pick some Golden Delicious and Jonathan and the taste just didn't stand up. They were good, but I think the heat this summer hurt them a bit. We also had to search pretty hard to find decent ones on the tree. But, like I said... it was definitely a fun family outing!

Matthias once again enjoying his backpack

Of course as soon as we let him out of his backpack he pondered the apples on the ground for about 1.5 seconds before grabbing one and taking a big bite! Luckily he grabbed one that was not rotten and actually had no blemishes :)

He then proceeded to sit down and enjoy his treasure!

And he kept right on munching his apple 

... and munching...

and munching his apple... all the way back to the store. We probably should have checked on him sooner than we did, because by the time I thought about it, he had already eaten half of the core. He didn't seem to mind too much :)

A happy apple-picking family! 

Of course we couldn't resist the frozen custard stand and indulged in a little treat... making the day even more perfect! Is there a better time of year than fall??