How do you spend possibly your last 80 degree day of the year?
Following church yesterday, we decided to visit a local farm market and happened to stumble upon a pumpkin festival. A huge event with all of the fall thrills of warm apple cider floating in the air and perfectly shaped pumpkins hiding in every nook of the property. My kids got extremely excited when we went into the market and it was pretty much assumed we would not be leaving without pumpkins in tow. Halloween is coming and maybe it was the right time to find the perfect gourd.
Inside the store were all of the produce and baked goods, and our children rushed out of the store as quickly as they could. The outside welcomed us with food trucks lining both sides of the outdoor market that everything from coffee to gyros. Rows of mums, haybales and corn stocks eventually gave way to huge piles of pumpkins and gourds. The girls quickly picked out small orange pumpkins while I absolutely fell in love with a blue pumpkin which I simply could not resist. We thought that we were done when our girls absolutely wanted to go on a hayride. We thought that the $14 per person price tag was insanely expensive, but it was one of those memories our daughters would never forget.
We all got on the hayride and took a ride up the hill at the farm market to the fields located above. When the ride ended at the top of fields, we were surprised to what was hidden above that could not be seen from the market below. There was a corn maze that the kids were terrified to go into the first time and insisted that they were not leaving without going through one more time. They enjoyed snow cones instead of a fall inspired treat as the weather screamed August instead of October. We also got to walk through a pumpkin patch, but never saw the Great Pumpkin. They played, explored and had a great time until the hayride was ready to bring us back down to the market. My girls cried leaving, but it was a true sign that they had a good time.
Later in the day, thunderstorms rolled in and a cold front took the last shot of summer weather away for the unforeseen future. We got our pumpkins, gourds and all!
