Pumpkin Patching Professionals.

It's that time of year again - pumpkin patch season!!! I just watched a viral video of this parent complaining quite hilariously about how she hates pumpkin patches - crowded, over-priced and over-rated but come on, really?! seriously, what's not to love??? It's our annual tradition with Grandma and Grandpa and we got there just before 11:00 am there must have been 1,000 cars in the parking lot already. Hmm...maybe some other people also checked the forecast and saw that today was mostly cloudy with showers. When you live in Vancouver cloudy with showers is awesome.

And whoever came up with the idea to sell pumpkins to people on their own farm is brilliant. They skip the part of shipping their products to the grocery stores and make a ton more money by having everyone come to them. Genuis. At the entrance of the farm, there was a longer line-up to get in if you wanted to pay with credit card...ha! amateur pumpkin patchers! but for vetrans of the pumpkin patch, we remembered to have cash and go in the empty cash-only entrance. Being pumpkin patching professionals, we hand over our $30 to get our family plus Grandma and Grandpa and it's great entertainment for the next hour and a half. The kids are so excited  milking wooden cows, racing through the corn maze, gold-panning, petting bunnies and squealing over all the characters they recognize in the enchanted forest.

The "hayride" is a tractor pulling a bench of parents and tots and goes in a pathetic circle, its such a small loop that even going at  5km/hour, the "hayride" lasts like 3 minutes. Seriously, the traffic circle I do everyday for school pick up is longer than this hayride...but the kids are holding hands during the whole ride and deemed it "so.much.fun!" (OK kiddos, forget going to Disneyland in the future...we'll just come here again).

I am SO excited that it wasn't raining so we can get our cliche pictures in the wide open pumpkin fields and secondly, the kids still fit their pumpkin-themed attire from last year. They are looking like pumpkin patching professionals out there. 

The kids are in great moods, they are photogenic for at least an hour no one is melting down. This was so much for not just the kids but the kids were having such a blast, it was fun for me too. Four years ago, I remember bouncing Newborn in the baby carrier while dragging a 2 year toddler on  who was soooooooooooo tired from walking  and of course Tired Toddler had me holding her enormous pumpkin as well. I remember trying to counter-balance the weight of Tired Toddler and enormous pumpkin and sweating profusely. And three years ago, Little Brother couldn't walk yet but desperately wanted to and Grandpa and Grandma held his hand so he could toddle everywhere and no one can catch up with him now. He was so confused why he had to hold Grandma and Grandpa's hand for this shot and I tried to explain what 'recreating a memory' was but I don't think he got it. (side note: looks like Grandpa still favors the same John Deere hat 3 years later)

Look at this... fresh air, fall colors and bright beautiful pumpkins as far as you can see. I totally could have gone to Superstore and thrown a pumpkin in the grocery cart but this is SO much better, am I right?