Pumpkin Patch 2015

A couple of weeks ago, we made our annual trek to the local pumpkin patch called Bi-Zi Farms.  It not only has a large pumpkin patch, but also has lots of other activities such as a farm animal petting area, corn maze, and other things.

Karina enjoyed sitting on a saddle to lasso pretend cattle.

This was Xiao Yu's first time, of course, and he enjoyed riding on the little tractors they have.  He absolutely loves riding anything that resembles a bicycle.

Cousin Anders got Xiao Yu a little cup of freshly pressed cider.  He took sips of it and of course liked it since it's so sweet.

The other kids visited the cider pressing station as well.

There is also a station where you husk a corn cob and then run it through a machine that scrapes the kernels off.  Then, you can grab handfuls of the kernels to put through yet another machine that grinds it into meal.  And then you can take the meal and throw it into the chicken pen.

There is a pumpkin launch area where you launch softball sized pumpkins towards large garbage can-sized bins about 30 yards away.  Xiao Yu, as he usually does, jumped right into the thick of things.  This boy does not like to sit on the side lines!

The bungee cords can be quite tight, so Xiao Yu needed a little bit of help in pulling the pumpkin backwards.

Eliana tried her hand at it as well.  She is strong enough to do it herself.

And away it goes!

Close, but not close enough.

And Karina tried it as well.

Then we got on a hay ride to get to the pumpkin patch.

You get one pumpkin per admission....so our wheelbarrow became very full.

The kids enjoyed the hay ride back.

There was a washing station to brush the mud off.

Before leaving, we entered the corn maze.

It's actually quite large and covers an area about the size of a football field, it seemed like.  After a while, one could get quite disoriented in it.  They provided a map and Anders served as the guide.   Without the map, one could spend hours lost in the maze.

Anders finally led out towards the way out!

And that was our pumpkin patch experience this year.

And to go along with the Fall-type motif, here is "homework" that Gabriel did for his preschool.  He traced out the letters in his name, which we were impressed with.  This is because he has not demonstrated any special aptitude in writing and drawing.  (In contrast, Gabey is astoundingly good at kitchen skills, such as cutting slices of a tomato using a chef's knife or flipping a pancake using a spatula.)  He also drew a smiley face and we do believe it's the first time ever that he has done that!