adventures

Apple Adventure

Beth Ogden

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Nothing says fall in New York like apples. A few weekends ago, our family went on an apple adventure in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Our first stop was at Westwind Orchard. The orchard didn’t produce enough apples this year for u-pick, but there is a nice area for hanging out, along with a small restaurant serving Italian tapas and wood-fired pizza, a variety of hard ciders, and a small store selling locally made goods and foods.

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My sister and I ordered a flight of hard cider to try and we all got some pizzas to share. There are a bunch of tables outside and we played some cornhole while waiting for our food. There were lots of families enjoying the beautiful weather and gorgeous location.

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After eating our fill, we headed down the road to a small U-pick orchard. Stone Ridge Orchard is a traditional apple orchard. The apple trees are 200-plus years old and the orchard doesn’t have the commercial feel typical of many U-pick orchards in New York. There were no lines and the employees were incredibly friendly and helpful. We explored the orchard after a long conversation with one of the employees. In addition to plenty of apple trees, we were encouraged to walk up the short hill to see the 300-year-old white oak tree. The tree is massive and absolutely stunning.

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We picked a bag of apples, then bought some apple cider and donuts. Before heading out, we sampled some of the hard cider made with apples from the orchard.

By then, it was late afternoon, so we headed home. It was a perfect outing on a beautiful day!

Evening of Day 1 and Day 2 in Peru

Beth Ogden

**I am truncating this post due to the large amount of pictures. Please read on to see more!

Well, I have to say the last three days have been both very busy and full of interesting adventures (to say the very least). On Sunday evening, we walked around Cusco a bit, mostly in the Plaza de Armas area, then went to dinner at a local restaurant. I don’t remember the name of it, seeing as when we arrived I started to get rather and quite suddenly nauseous.  It was a three-course meal, and I ate very little of it at all (as in 3 spoonfuls of the soup).  We then walked back to the house we are staying in.  As we walked, I got more and more nauseous.  There is a fairly short but very steep hill up to the house we are staying in, and the climb combined with the altitude caused me to get sick right outside the house.  I’m not sure if it was altitude sickness or something else, but I definitely did not feel well at all.  I then went to sleep right away. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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Life Lately

Beth Ogden

Wow! It has been an incredibly busy couple of weeks!

Last Wednesday (Sept. 18th), I went to Ithaca, NY with several friends.  We walked around the commons and had a bunch of fun.  We also ate out at Chipotle’s and got ice cream at Coldstone.  I had a lot of homework Thursday (mostly because I put it off on Wednesday), so was up late until about 1 AM.  We were planning to get up the next morning (Friday) fairly early to get in line to put down our deposits for the Ireland trip for our spring semester (I had decided that I would like to go on the 24 day trip with my five of my friends rather than go to Peru).  At 4 in the morning, I got a phone call from one of my friends, telling me to throw clothes on and run to the bookstore because a bunch of people were camping out for the trip.  So I ran (literally) over there (at FOUR IN THE MORNING!).  About 30 of us camped out until 7:20 when the lady that deals with deposits arrived.  There were only 24 spots, but I was the 25th to arrive to camp out, so I wanted to get on the wait list, knowing that if someone decided not to go, I would still be able to go.  When we went to register, we were informed that two people had been given permission to register early, so there were now only 22 spots.  This put me third on the wait list.  So I got three hours of sleep and woke up at 4 in the morning to sit on a hard, stone floor for several hours to get waitlisted.  At least it was fun and it’s a good story, right?  I somehow made it through the day going on no sleep.  That night I Christian Fellowship, and I sang in the worship team.  We then watched “Phantom of the Opera” and hung out until far too late (considering all of us had gotten very little sleep the night before).  On Saturday, my parents and sister came for Family Weekend, and we bought a futon for my suite common area and set it up.  We ate dinner at a really interesting restaurant, then they headed back home.

On Sunday, I played my violin at church (and ended up reading one of the scriptures as well).  I then did a bunch of homework.  On Tuesday, I was super productive and didn’t procrastinate at all.  I got so much done!  And then I crashed at about 9 at night.  On Wednesday, I had some time to just relax.  Thursday was a bit rough.  One of my classes (which is a very long class to begin with) didn’t go very well, which put me in a pretty bad mood.  I went to a Latin American concert on campus, and then got dessert with one of my friends, which ended up being really great and changed my mood back around.  We were in our late-night food service place until they started to clean up around us.  On Friday, I decided that the chances of me getting to go on the Ireland trip were getting pretty slim, so I met with the professor doing the Peru trip.  I decided that I definitely wanted to go to Peru, and promptly went to the business office to make my deposit and secure my spot.  Which means I am going to Peru for three weeks in April into May!!!!  I am super excited about this amazing experience!  I sang in Christian Fellowship and then a bunch of us got together for a movie night in our suite.  Yesterday was pretty busy.  One of my dad’s cousins and one of his aunts were in town for their neice’s/granddaughter’s field hockey game, so they contacted me and took me out to lunch, which was really nice of them.  I then went to the field hockey game (I had planned to go anyway, since one of my friends is on our team).  My friends and I went to Sweet FROG Frozen Yogurt, which just opened up, for frozen yogurt after the game- it was delicious!  I then rushed back to campus to change quickly, and then I went hiking with two of my friends.  It was such a gorgeous day for a hike, the views were amazing, and it was so peaceful!  I need to get out in nature more often, it always leaves me feeling so refreshed and at peace.  After the hike, we grabbed dinner and then I just hung out in my room, reading and such.  I was pretty tired and didn’t feel like doing much.

I hope you had a great couple of weeks and that the weather was as gorgeous as it was here this past week!  It looks like this coming week is going to be nice as well.