Pumpkin Patch

Last year we learned of a free, family-owned and -operated "Pumpkin Patch" farm, a 15 minute drive from our house. This year we made it there. We went on a cloudless Friday morning and had the place practically to ourselves. :) We like that a lot. :) In one of their barns they let visitors go and see - and pet - some animals. It was cute, but a little juvenile for our kiddos.

Beside that barn is an old shed that, instead of tearing down, they had some guys come and turn it into a blind path. I don't know what else to call it. They call it simply "The Box". There's an entrance and an exit, both normal door size, but once you get a little ways in there, it gets wonky! There is no light except what comes in through the tiny cracks in the walls. The pathway is only as wide as an adult. It starts with an incline, which then does a 180-degree turn as it continues taking you up. Next is a right turn, and then the ceiling gradually shortens on ya! Around the next right, the floor tilts to the left, and then to the right, before there's another right hand turn. I know I'm not explaining this very well, and that is as much of the experience as I can explain to you firsthand. We let the children go in first (The people kinda made it sound like it was mostly for kids, but that adults *could* do it, too, so Jeremy and I decided to be good sports!) I went in last, and it was HI-LARIOUS listening to the excited, surprised voices of each of my family members as they discovered some totally unexpected challenge in "The Box". Pretty soon Justus and Natasha said they were down on all fours and said, "You guys better go back! You won't be able to make it through here!" Wisely (ha, or fearfully ... due to my mild claustrophobia), I took their advice and made my way back through The Box; thankfully no one else had followed me in!! Courageously, Jeremy pressed on. I got out in time to position myself to take pictures of Justus and Jeremy exiting, ha.







Next we did the hay bale maze. It was surprisingly tricky and fun! My smidge of claustrophobia kicked in here, too; I was very thankful I was following someone who could at least see over the top!! lol Natasha and Justus ran it, and Jeremy and I giggled and giggled at their squeals of delight and frustration. We couldn't see them, just trusted that they would likely find their way out before we did. Thankfully that was the case, and we didn't have to go searching in there for them!!



There were some games set up to play! Interesting games! Imaginative games! One was a baseball cap that had a tea bag stapled to the end of each of two foot-long strings which were attached to the front of the cap's bill. There was a timer to set for 1 min., and the goal is to flip the bill of the cap so that both tea bags were resting on top of the bill at the same time! Woah, hard!! The goal of the game pictured below is to use only the stick to stack the eight nuts on top of each other in less than a minute. Jeremy did it in about 45 seconds. (eye roll) He is ridiculously good at stuff like this.



This is a sock-throw game. There were six bean-filled socks. Jeremy took three and Justus took three, and Jeremy said whoever got three socks through the holes first would be the winner. Jeremy threw one; it went in. Justus threw one; it missed. Jeremy threw his 2nd, and it went right in. Justus threw his second, and missed. Jeremy threw his third, and won the game. Justus threw his third and, of course missed. I'm telling you! If I were a competitive person, Jeremy's natural abilities would make things un-fun for me. Thankfully I'm NOT, and I flit along just proud to be married to someone so talented!!!!!!!!!! (Ha! Now I'm ~giggling~ about me "flitting"!!)



Why do our kids RRREALLY not look as cute in these things as they used to??! MAN, they're growing up....



Too bad the camera batteries died before I got to take pictures of us in the corn bin and choosing our pumpkins! Jeremy even chose a few gourds to use as targets the next day when he and Justus went shooting while Natasha and I attended a Ladies' Day!