A few weeks ago Beth suggested that we all go to a pumpkin patch the weekend before Halloween. I had already decided we weren't going to do trick-or-treating yet because (1) Clara is too young to really understand/care, (2) our neighborhood is not good for trick-or-treating, and (3) we would have to figure out the gluten issue with any candy she got. So the pumpkin patch sounded like a great gluten-free substitute for Halloween fun. And to make it even better, both Don & Merlene and Beth's mom Jean were in town this weekend too.
Since we aren't going to have any costumes this year, we decided to wear Halloween shirts for the day. Clara's jack-o-lantern shirt from last year still fit. I wore a shirt that has a bunch of skulls and crossbones on it. Don had a candy corn shirt and Merlene had an orange shirt that said "This is my awesome Grandma costume" in purple letters with witch symbols. Jack had picked out a onesie for Jane that said "Cutest pumpkin in the patch." Jack himself didn't have a specifically Halloween themed shirt, so he wore his black Wolfman tshirt (a DJ from Colorado Springs) to contrast all the orange shirts everyone else had.
I was worried the place would be a zoo the weekend before Halloween, but their website explained that parking was free this weekend (compared to $5/car the weekends before) which made me hope that the busiest weekends are already behind us. They opened at 9am so we planned to all meet there at 9:30am.
Sure enough, there was space everywhere, and when we walked in there were only a couple dozen other people around. It was perfect. Plus it was still nice and cool out (not yet reaching the afternoon high of 85...in late October. Oh Sacramento).
First thing we walked over to the animal pens to check out goats, pigs, sheep, and chickens. This is the first time Clara has seen live animals (other than cats and dogs) since learning all her animal vocabulary, so it was pretty fun to watch her check them out. She has a youtube playlist of animal vocab that covers all these farm animals and more, so she's seen a lot of videos of them and now she got to see the real thing. She kept trying to get me to pick her up and put her down inside the pens. At one point she took my hand and pulled me over to the locked pen gate and said "Open!" Good trying, baby.
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| Check out King Goat in the upper right. |
After the animals we moved on to (one of) the actual pumpkin patches, specifically the patch with relatively small pumpkins. Clara was very excited to see the pumpkins but she wasn't really ready to actually touch them. Hunter, on the other hand, waw happy to touch them and, if he'd been allowed, would have happily thrown them across the field, haha.
I crouched near Clara and touched the pumpkins in front of her, including balancing one on top of another, which she liked. She tried to do the same but wasn't fond of the dew on all of them. So instead she grabbed my hand and directed me to pick up and stack certain pumpkins.
We headed back from the patch and came across some stationary trailers filled with hay bales, so we put Hunter and Beth in them and let them explore a bit.
While we were checking it out, a train ("train" - there are no tracks, it's just a car dressed up to look like a train with more trailers connected) full of parents and kids went around the patch. Clara got very excited and climbed down to chase after it, so Jack went with her. While they were chasing the train, Merlene went to buy us tickets for the next train ride, and I stayed back and got some great pics of Don with the littlest Jackson.
We all reconvened (including Beth, Hunter, and Jean) to get a train ride in. Clara was a little unsure at first of which car she wanted to get in. She seemed nervous. I thought she might like to sit with Hunter but she didn't like the closed in cars. I took her onto an open air car instead and we all piled in. She seemed happy to look at everything from there but I wasn't sure how she'd react once the train started moving. I was worried it would make her nervous.
Happy to be wrong! As soon as it started moving she was grinning and looking at me to make sure I was watching. She was very excited to actually be on a train after watching so many trains (another youtube playlsit we have). For most of the ride she wanted to sit in my lap, which was pretty sweet, but eventually I got her to stand (with me holding her waist) to watch everything go by. We went past the pumpkins, corn stalks, some wild sunflowers. It was lovely.
We finished the outing by checking out tiny pumpkins in the bins near the exit. Clara picked out one -- the greenest one -- and we bought it and headed home.
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| Clara wanted me to "try" the various pumpkins and squash. |
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| Like father like son. |
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