It’s no secret that I am a HUGE fan of Fall. I love fall foliage and the beautiful colors. I love crisp sweater weather and kettle corn. I love tractor rides and I love pumpkin patches. It’s my jam. It’s been an annual tradition to go since my son was about 2 and could really enjoy running around and seeing all the new sights and sounds. I have been looking forward to being able to take the family out for a day of fun Fall activities, and letting the baby see a bit of different scenery. Alas, this weather has been so uncooperative. High heat. Lots of humidity. It didn’t seem to be playing out for us and then….This weekend. The weatherman hinted to a great Saturday with true Fall temps and fun activities. It’s also the last weekend we could really go, so…off to the Patch we went! We even took a special guest…our cousin and fantastic sitter R. (who BTW is the most fashion forward young adult I’ve seen in quite some time). Anywho, let me give you the recap!
The Location. It was a tossup. There are two favorite pumpkin patch locations that I love. One is HUGE. I mean….super huge…like 90 acres huge. There are about 5 giant slides, a huge tractor ride with people dressed in costume who do Jedi mind tricks and sing, a petting zoo, a huge eating area, a maze, rope swings, straw tunnels, live entertainment, and a LOT of people. My goodness, it’s a lot of people. I love this one, but it is an hour away and can be VERY expensive. Depending on the day, it’s $10 to $20. Weekends are $15-$20 per person for everyone over the age of 24 months. With five of us, one being an infant, we were looking at $80.00. OH MY! Oh and It’s about an hour and six minutes away.
The other location is closer. It’s about 40 minutes away. It isn’t as large, which can be a good thing when taking the littles. The tickets are locked in at $19.95, but come with a band of 12 tokens that can be used for kiddie paintball (which my son loves), painting mini pumpkins, cut flowers, or tossing pumpkins. It has some pretty neat attractions in its own right. A mini zip line for the kids, a tractor ride, kiddie swings, a spider web (which we usually don’t get on because it’s tiny and all the kids clamber over it), a kiddie playground, a big pumpkin slide, petting zoo, a pedal car track, a corn maize, a tractor ride, a mini train ride, and a barn. The kids also have options to eat (but it’s expensive as all get out and we’ll probably just wait until we leave and stop somewhere). Most importantly, it also has KETTLE CORN! BUT the price of a pumpkin is N
Decision made, we arrived about an hour after opening. Unfortunately, little S. was not able to join us and we decided to make this one a girl’s trip. No worries. We will make it up with him soon.
Baby goats are too adorable!
The activities. After a brief stop at the bathroom, we started our trek with an adventure to the kiddie area. H. saw the tire swings that were shaped like horses and just had to try them out. She only stayed on a short while before venturing to the sand pit to play with the toy trucks and ride-ons. Afterwards, we ventured over to the ride the pony area where she took a ride on a little pony. Sticking with the animal theme, we then hung out with a few goats and sheep before heading over to the face painting area. The Girl Scouts were there doing free painting and H. asked for a butterfly. We rounded out the event with slides and a ride on the tractor to the pumpkin patch. Of course, this is when my camera decided to die early, so picks from the patch 🙁
OT included. You have to purchase it separately and that costs $0.69 a pound. The good news is the kids already bought their pumpkins and decorated (with the exception of little S. who we have a special one for). After some back and forth, we decided on the second one.
I did have one interesting incident while letting H. play. The baby decided she was hungry and began to cry. I had her trusty bottle ready and available but she didn’t want it. She flat out rejected it. Long story short, she only wanted breast milk and I wasn’t about to stop H from playing to go to a bathroom. I pulled out a shawl I keep for just such occasions and nursed my daughter for the first time in public. I received only one dirty look, but I ignored them because I was doing nothing wrong. I am so proud of myself.
My first ever apple donut…loved it!
After all of our fun activities, our final stop before leaving was my KETTLE CORN!!! Yay! I love kettle corn. I absolutely love it, but I only get it in the Fall because that just seems more appropriate than not. I have a big bag and it appears that just the kids and I will be enjoying it because S. isn’t a fan. We also managed to get some apple donuts on the journey as well. It was an awesome day and I am so glad we were able to do it.
Next up is Fall Festivals and Joy nights…stay tuned…
