day trip two : i want to go north!

..so north we went. 

when i first moved to boston i was looking at the blog of the family of the house i was living in (they moved to london for 6 months) and i came across this post  and just knew i needed to find that crane estate and go someday. 

i decided that day was going to be this day.

PSYCH. after a nice hour long drive to the estate we got there 12 MINUTES AFTER THE LAST TOUR and they wouldn't let us join in. i had misread the info online and thought we had plenty of time so i was pretty bummed. the drive was nice though!

lucky for us i am a planner and try to usually kill two or three adventure birds with one stone so i planned for us to head to russell orchards after crane estate which was conveniently just down the road. 

so we turned around and head to the orchard. i fell in love with it immediately.

it had the best and cutest store. 

homemade cider donuts made right then and there!

raspberry apple cider, those freshly made cider donuts, something new to both of us - cape gooseberries, pond friends, best barn, and nice shade under a big tree. 

 a self-timed failure i rather enjoy

if you are thinking i don't know how large i look in this picture - rest assured - i am very aware. and if you didn't think that, well now you are. 

cape gooseberries! i liked them until john pointed out that they taste like cheese. 

WARNING: this is a boring story so you might as well skip it.

this would be the part of the day when i realized i had a huge oil circle on my bum and then looked down and noticed i SAT ON A DONUT. who does that? oh just me. trying to get a nice picture i grabbed that donut and set it down next to me so it wouldn't be in the way. then i got up to play with the friends above and then forgot about the donut. then as i came back and sat down i started criticizing john for not actually getting me in any of the pictures and must have sat on it without realizing it. then i made him try again with me in the photo and this is what we came up with. worst picture with the worst stain bum. this was a very stressful moment and i felt so annoyed and mad about everything that was happening and all john could do was laugh. laugh and laugh and laugh. why?  because he is dating the crazy photo lady and doesn't even know how to help me in my moments of being nuts. i hated yet secretly loved him for this reaction. he handles the crazy well. 

 lil sebastian!! and uncomfortable "this cider might kill you" warning label

animal friends

for some reason i thought it would be a good idea not pick apples and thought we could have time to come back some day and  do it after going to the crane estate. 

that was wishful thinking, we definitely did not make our way back up there. 

     and we will close the orchard portion of this post with the most ugly and sweet animal maybe ever :

down the road we saw the topsfield fair going on that seemed rather promising so we decided to stop and check it out. (this day i was missing swiss days so i needed some county fair in my life!)

i didn't know this was still real

so many gems

this nice man showed us all about how he makes wooden pens and i thought it was so cool that this pen had teeny tiny clock pieces in it. he even offered to make me a wooden letter opener! dad, i still look for those every where for you.  

best news = these guys. 

 gerbs seeds friends told us all about where we could find little caesars in massachusetts and gave us some great ideas for good things to do this fall in new england. it only got slightly uncomfortable when green shirt started asking if we had any booze on us or where he could get some. some people are so good at surprising me and making me feel awkward! green guy is one of them. 

after talking to them they thanked us for stopping by the guitar guy across from them because it made him stop singing for ten minutes hahah. john loved those jams!

our next spontaneous stop : farmer browns grocery store

that kettle corn was delicious and i laughed so good at that corn sign

 and then heyo what is this feast of three saints festival doing here?! i really had no idea what it was but it sounded nice and was only a few more miles north and it was in fact north day so it seemed appropriate to attend. 

bless his heart for dating me and my summer bucket list

 classy

i believe this was the day john truly realized his hatred for my camera. 

 i don't know if this explosion of loud sounds was planned or not

 i can't really say we ever knew what was going on at this festival but we appreciated seeing everything, being introduced to fried pb&j's and italian rice balls, and also seeing lots of grown men wave fire around and chant random things in italian. scott you are coming with us next year!

in closing we also REALLY appreciated this chicago cover band - except for the part where they didn't play any of my favorite songs and that made me sad. 

and that my friends, all happened in a matter of like 10 hours. i said it once and i'll say it again, bless john's heart!