Farm Fun & Fairytale Land

Never have weekends felt so sweet as during September with a new student in the house. Joe and I keep joking that Ez is the only one of us forced to go out and interact with society on a daily basis, and after a rough first week (more on that in another post), we wanted to treat the whole family to some upbeat, celebratory, fall-themed fun. Ez just so happened to fill up his entire chore chart this weekend too, so we made sure to tack on a few visits to his favorite places: Target ("it's not a toy store, it's TARGET") and "the blue toy store" (Toys R Us). Since we promised those were on the agenda he conceded to allow us to drag him to a farm to pick out our very first pumpkins of the year, and to Fairytale Land for a children's book festival. Despite a lackluster initial reaction to our plans, once we got to the farm and he found dirt to dig in, a hay tunnel which we lost both boys to for at least half an hour, and a mini pony that ate hay right out of our hands, his day was pretty much made. Fairytale Land was a huge hit too, with a couple hundred slides down Jack's beanstalk, and several slides down the tallest playground slide I've ever seen. Decky was content to hang out in a giant hunk of cheese, photo-bombing everyone else's pictures. 

Apple Picking

Only ten more days until it's officially fall! September is that weird in between month where school has started and the pools are closed so mentally we've moved on from summer, but it's still a hundred degrees and the air has been an awful smoky haze for the past few weeks from nearby wildfires. I am so ready for crisp air and sweaters, but until the weather gets on board we'll just eat everything pumpkin and apple and pretend. This past Sunday we wanted to spend Ez's last day as a non-student doing something special for him. And as a kid who would gladly eat a bushel of apples a day if we let him, we figured apple picking was the way to go. Of course, on the way there, he voiced his other plans, which were to go to Target, but once we got there he was all about those apples.

Last year the apples were over-ripe and buzzing with bees and wasps by late September, which made for a less than pleasant experience. Nothing puts me on edge like bees buzzing around my head. This year we opted to go a little earlier in the season and the apples were perfectly sweet and crunchy, plus not a bee in sight. We grabbed ourselves a box and got to work, with Ez doing most of the picking and Declan doing most of the heavy lifting. He insisted on carrying the box up until it was nearly half full. That kid can't resist any chance to flex his muscles. I call him my baby Hulk.

The orchard had fuji and granny smith apples, but after about three rows of fujis our box was overflowing and we had approximately 5 lbs more apples than a family of four could possibly need. You'd think we'd be appled out, but we also made sure to stop at BOA Orchards up the street to stock up on everything apple-related we could get our hands on. Apple salad dressing. Apple wine. Apple Pumpkin Butter...you get the idea. I wasn't hungry so I skipped out on the pie and donuts, but I'm already regretting that decision. It's possible we'll have to go back and remedy that.

Ez can expect to get apples in his lunchbox for the next 30 weeks or so. I've also been eating shredded apple in my oatmeal, blended apples in our smoothies, and I've got my sights set on these apple oat no bake bites, this perfect fall salad, apple veggie muffins, and some apple monkey bread for good measure. That should only leave about six dozen apples leftover. What's your favorite way to bake with apples?

And for comparison's sake, here's our last three years of apple picking:

Happy almost fall, y'all!

Pony Rides

I mentioned earlier this week that a pony ride at the pumpkin patch was a must this year. It was such a bittersweet moment last year when I wanted to walk alongside the pony next to Ez and they told me no. I still remember saying I didn't think he'd want to do it without me and then he just left me in the dust with the most content, proud little smile on his face, like, "I got this Mom." Just like that. Not even the slightest waver of fear. From him, anyway. My sweet little baby wasn't quite such a baby anymore. 

This year we decided Declan needed in on the fun too. Turns out pony rides aren't everyone's cup of tea. We took exactly two pictures because he began crying immediately and didn't even make it half a lap before they handed him back to us. Better luck next year.

Ez did just as well as last year. He had that same content little smile as before but I couldn't help but notice that he didn't look quite so tiny on his horse. Sniff. Ez is my little horse whisperer and he seemed like he would've been perfectly happy to stay right there on his horse for the whole afternoon. He loved it so much I'm contemplating a horse back riding lesson or two, just so he can go for a longer stretch.

And just for fun you can check out the comparison photo of him last year, which we currently have framed on our gallery wall in the living room.

Last year's pony ride:

Moving right along on our fall bucket list, and we're going to cross off one more item that I'm very excited about this weekend:

Corn Maze Fun

Our last trip to the pumpkin farm also included a corn maze. The farm we go to is near my parent's house and we've been going every October since I was in middle school. When I moved down to Southern California for school I remember being so disappointed that there were no good corn mazes down there. Joe and I tried going to one back before Ez was born and it was so poorly done that it was just like walking through a muddy corn field with no discernible paths to follow. We got completely lost and wound up making our own paths, which wasn't fun at all. 

When we moved back up here just in time for fall last year I made it a priority to go back and visit that corn maze. And guess what? It was even better than I remembered. It's grown into a whole harvest festival type thing and they add new stuff to do each year. There's zip lining, bungee jumping, and an obstacle course for the thrill-seeking types. There's little kiddie carnival rides, including a roller coaster, a haunted house, train ride, giant play structures, a huge game of checkers, pony rides, food booths....the list of things to do there goes on and on. To be honest we didn't take advantage of 80% of the stuff they had to offer and we were still there for several hours and had so much fun. 

My main purpose of going there is the corn maze. I have so many good memories of wandering around lost in their really intricate and complicated mazes that I want to share that with Ez, Declan, and Joe. We made sure to pick a day that Gangy and Grampa could join us as well. But before we could get started on the maze there were a few enticing playgrounds that Ez and Declan couldn't resist, starting with the giant pyramid of tires just begging to be climbed, a wooden train and monster truck, and a huge checkers board where the pieces were made of little tires. The checker board was probably my favorite, and surprisingly enough it was Ez and Declan's too. But not to play checkers. They loved making us stack the tires as tall as possible so they could push the whole tire tower over, screaming and jumping and laughing the whole time. That alone could have been hours of entertainment, but I dragged everyone off to the corn maze.

Someone who works at the farm handed us a map when we entered the maze but was so complicated looking that it was basically useless. And anyway, who needs a map when you have an Ez? We let him lead the way and he was a very sure and decisive leader, grabbing Grampa's hand and running off ahead, shouting back to us "This way!" before he'd disappear around a wall of corn. Declan was much less enthusiastic about the whole thing and clung to me or Joe at first, but he was a trooper and just kept marching along with a serious little look on his face.

We wandered and wandered, following Ez's directions, for almost an hour and a half, or about 3.5 miles. Thankfully the weather was absolutely perfect for being lost in a giant field of corn, mid 70s and not too hot at all. They have three mazes and each maze has a platform that you can climb up to survey where you are and which path to follow. We made it to two of the platforms. In other words, we covered a lot of ground. I was so proud of Ez for walking the whole way, and Declan for walking about half the way. They had a great time running wild and getting nice and dirty. At one point they both stopped to give themselves a dirt bath. It's like they each realized at the same moment that they were completely wasting this opportunity to get dirty and just started grabbing fistfuls of dirt and throwing it up in the air. Joe was brave enough to get some close up pictures while the rest of us took cover. Boys...

In the end we only had to cheat a teensy, tiny little bit. We knew we were one row over from the exit so we just snuck through the corn. The people working at the entrance commented on how we finally made it out and how long we were in there. I guess that's to be expected when following a three year old's directions. After some refreshments we boarded the train which took us around the perimeter of the farm and through a little old West town set up with real actors portraying a shootout. You can see Ez staring in shock at the bandit who was just shot to death right before his eyes. Not exactly something any of us were expecting to see on the train ride. Despite the random shootout it was a perfect fall outing and I'm so glad we went early in the day and beat the crowds and the heat. 

One more item off our list!