Farm.

Today we met some friends at Linder Farms to have some fall fun. We got there early, right as the farm opened, so the crowds weren't bad at all and it wasn't too warm out. We played in the hay maze, Ben climbed through the tire tunnels and posed for pictures.

Then all of us loaded up on the hay ride through the corn maze and out to the pumpkin patches. We had a lot of fun walking through the vines to look at all the different pumpkins, gourds and squashes. Finally, we picked our perfect three and loaded back up on the tractor.

After we weighed and paid for our finds, we were off to the petting zoo. Ben wasn't really that interested in feeding any of the animals (kangaroo! zebra! camel!) but he did like waving at them and yelling "hi". :)

Once we were through with the petting zoo, we went over to the pony ride. I wasn't sure how Ben would do - he loves animals but he seemed to get intimidated by them up close (at the zoo when we had him feed the giraffe, he threw the lettuce at the giraffe and refused to touch him), but he was a pro! He had such a good time riding and said "thank you" to the ladies helping out.

Next we did the barrel ride which looked like a lot of fun. Well, okay, I had a good time giggling at Nick stuffed in the barrel but Ben really did look like he was enjoying it. He kept saying "choo choo!"

After the barrel ride it was almost time to go home but we had extra tokens so we let Ben ride the pony again. We had to wait in line this time (it was starting to crowd up when we left) but he did really great at waiting (which is another thing that surprised me - Mr. Attitude was in a spectacular mood and I don't think he had one fit the whole time we were there).

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We haven't carved our pumpkins yet, probably later in the week. I wanted to do them today but Nick pointed out that it's still 2 weeks til Halloween and they might not last so I agreed we should wait a bit longer.

We've been taking lots of walks around our neighborhood and looking at all the "creepies" as Ben & I call them. I'll have to take pictures next time we're out - those will be fun memories to scrapbook. There's a house a few streets over that has gone all out (big time cemetery in their front yard with a skeleton boy riding a tricycle, skeleton ghoul guys carrying a coffin, etc) that Ben LOVES looking at.

Here's a little movie I took with Nick's phone of the pony ride. Sorry it's sideways - I've changed the orientation on youtube but it's been "processing" for 5 hours now...