Fall has something the rest of the year doesn’t have - these crazy big pumpkin/apple farms that open up for picking. Well that’s the general premise anyway, but they’ve become so much more than that. They’re comparable to amusement parks in their size and activities, and they’re only open for two-ish months in the fall where everyone flocks to them.
They’re so overwhelming that Tom and I are a bit afraid of them. We’ve been to all the big ones and have had bad experiences dealing with lines and traffic and getting lost, so we usually stick to the smaller and less intimidating ones. Of course that means they offer less to do while you’re there.
As I was looking at the calendar recently, I realized that this past Sunday was the only day that my best friend and I had free at the same time until… NOVEMBER! And seeing how life is about to get a lot more crazy shortly after that, this called for a bigger than usual date. No Target outing for us. Something big and memorable and awesome.
So plans were made to head to one of the bigger farms with both families in tow. We figured that it would be less scary with reinforcements, and we’d also plan to show up the minute it opened to minimize crowds. (You guys - this was the best decision we ever made. Forget lines to do fun activities, when we left there was an hour wait just to enter the farm! I would have turned around and gone straight home).
We also made a conscious decision that we’ve never done before. We were going to skip morning nap. E usually goes down between 8-9 in the mornings, which would be impossible with our plans, so we decided if he skips that nap while at daycare, we could skip it for this outing. Spoiler alert: It mostly went okay… we had no meltdowns while we were out and having fun, and he took a short nap in the car ride home, rallied for a bit in the afternoon before taking another short nap - which is when things went downhill fast. Basically our punishment for skipping naps meant a rough evening, but I think we all survived…
And the morning was just so much fun. Since the farm was mostly empty, E and A got their pick of things to play with. Empty sandbox filled with toys! Go karts! Petting zoo! We had it all to ourselves, and it was wonderful.
The biggest mistake was when it came to the corn maze. And here’s where I take responsibility. I KNEW. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew how awful these things are. How long you can get stuck inside them. I’ve sworn off EVER stepping foot in one again. And I’m cursing the dad who came out with two boys as we were approaching it, and told us it was super easy, there were a lot of clues, and it took him only 15 minutes. LIES.
We got so lost. The toddlers refused to walk. They were hungry, we were hungry, everyone was melting down. We cheated. A lot. We used our cell phones to download maps and clues and still IT WAS HORRIBLE. The worst part was getting to checkpoint 8/10 and then taking a wrong turn and ending up back at #5. Just listen to me now, and SKIP THE CORN MAZE.
However, we finally got out and managed to have fun afterwards. We took a train ride (seriously one of the coolest ones I’ve seen at a place like this) that brought us around the whole farm and let us know just HOW BIG this place was. After that food was necessary. E was so happy to be eating real food, he kept doing a happy dance in our laps.
So although we didn’t pick a single apple or go home with any pumpkins, we still had an awesome day. And I dare say we might even go back some time in the future!
And yes, I realized when I got home that I’m in almost none of the pictures. I’m glad I took a lot of pictures to document the day, but in the future I’ll try to make Tom take more so that I can at least prove that I was there!
