Grape Picking!

Our first day of our grape juice canning weekend was fun! I stayed up a little too late Thursday night with a friend and didn't get home in time to prepare for the next day. So Friday morning I got up early enough to pack and get the car loaded before taking off. I had to spend a couple hours at work before meeting my mom in Eastern Washington so when I left the house Friday morning, I wasn't coming back until Sunday.


Front Seat


Passenger Side Rear


Trunk


Driver Side Rear

As you can see, I had my car absolutely packed to the gills! I brought 65 quart mason jars, 12 half-pint mason jars, 10 lbs of sugar, 7 empty banana boxes, the double stroller, two packed diaper bags, a duffel bag for myself, and I even had enough room leftover for some miscellaneous canning stuff! My husband thought I was going to need the hitch rack for more cargo room, but to my amazement, I proved him wrong! (That RARELY happens!)

After meeting my mom for lunch in Ellensburg, we all piled into her minivan and trekked out to Yakima. Our first stop was my Aunt's neighbors house. They had a small supply of grapes we picked for free. It was there that Celesta fell out of the van and chipped her tooth. I was so preoccupied with handling that, I didn't take any pics there.

Our next stop was a nearby fruit stand my mom loves to visit when she has the opportunity to do so. There I picked up two boxes of tomatoes, a bag of peppers and a bag of onions to bring home for making more spaghetti sauce. Since it's the end of the season, prices rocked!

From there we finally traveled to a cute little vineyard my mom goes to for her grapes.




There were LOADS of concord grapes!


Celesta 'helping' pick grapes




A very wet Celesta, can you see her tooth chipped?

It began raining as soon as we got there, so the picking wasn't exactly fun. After an hour of getting rained on, Celesta whining/crying because she was cold and her teeth hurt, and Rachael fussing because I didn't take her out of the car, we finally called it a day and left without filling all our boxes with grapes. We were kinda dissapointed we didn't fill all our boxes, but we figured we did the best we could.

After retrieving my car in Ellensburg, Mom and I pulled in to my parents place after 9:00pm with a van full of fruit and a car full of tired kids. We left the fruit in the van overnight and got Celesta and Rachael bathed and in bed before we finally retired for the day. I was wiped!

As soon as I get the pics from our day of canning, I'll post them! Until then!