On Friday, Maya, Scott, Trevor and I went to the Phillips Family Farm. This is our third Halloween in North Carolina, and every year, we've visited a different farm/pumpkin patch to help celebrate the holiday.
Trevor thought the sun was too hot, so he brought an umbrella. Silly kid.
The boys played on a very bumpy tube slide before going to launch some miniature pumpkins with the pumpkin launcher.
This thing was so loud! Packed quiet a punch, too.
Maya watched and contemplated a bit. Then the guy who was running the launcher heard me say her name and said, "My granddaughter's name is Maya! I love that name!" He talked her into giving it a shot,
and then after we paid for the first try, he let her shoot it twice more for free because Maya has a tendency to grow on you rather quickly.
There was a bounce house
and a tube slide, too.
Maya thought she'd take this tractor for a spin. Notice in the background, the sign on the barn says, "Gore House". That's where the haunted house is. We didn't visit that, however.
Maya says, "Watch out for me and my tractor."
The boys opted for smaller, pedal powered tractors.
Scott actually ran one of the attendants over with his. In his defense, he got caught in a traffic jam and he had to decide between hitting a young child on a smaller tractor, or the older girl who, for reasons we still don't understand, was standing right in the middle of the path while about ten kids raced around her. Scott pulled the brake and tried to miss both girls, but slid into the attendant all the same. No one was hurt, and Maya, who was standing next to me said, "Serves her right. Only an idiot stands in the way of a group of kids on wheels." True, very true.
Trevor made some corn angels in the corn pit
while Scott and Maya watched. Scott says, "Corn? Not so much."
He did conquer the mini maze, though, and declared himself king of the hay.
Did I mention that it was bright out?
We entered the maze, armed with a sheet of questions for us to answer at various markers. Each answer we came up with gave us a different direction to head in. How hard could this be? We weren't worried.
We wound up in the maze so long, even the dried corn started looking appetizing to Scotty.
Taking a breather. Why was this in the back of the corn maze? We don't know, but of course I had to take a picture of it.
When it was all said and done, it took us nearly an hour to get out of the corn maze. Yikes. We didn't give up and wave our flag, although the thought crossed our minds. I don't know about those questions they asked, either...
After the maze, Maya and I decided it was time for the hay ride. Oh, oops...I mean, the "Hillbilly Lemozine".
She and I climbed in to wait a bit while the boys decided to take a spin on the cow train. Yes...you read that right. The cow train. Complete with heads...and tails.
Giddy up...oh, wait...I mean, "Nurr!" I dare you to keep a straight face while looking at these three 'cows' following this tractor. Go ahead. Give it a try.
Once the cow train pulled into the station, the boys joined Maya and I and we took a hay ride to the pumpkin patch.
The Phillips family also grows strawberries...and lots of them. Those are them above, and in May, they open the farm up and allow you to come and pick them. We may have to do that if we're still here by then. Fresh strawberries...that sounds pretty good.
To be honest, I'm not sure what Scott was doing here. Being a goofball. He's good at that.
There weren't a lot of pumpkins left, but there were quite a few.
Our kids. Aren't they beautiful?
The Terrific Trio. Such good friends.
Maya, Pumpkin Queen.
This little guy was sitting in the pumpkin patch, just grinning away. I'm not sure who carved him, but I think he's awful cute.
Heading back toward the festivities again, and something cool to drink. All this hay riding makes a kid thirsty.
Duck races!
More tube swinging,
and cell phone as sun shield.
Scott tried his hand at the big tractor,
and Trevor chugged a beer while he drove. (A root beer, that is.)
Hey...I'm on the other side of the camera...but not for long.
Maya decided to give the tube slide a go with the boys. It's a slide, she reasoned. How hard can it be? Well, harder than it looks it turns out.
I perched down below in anticipation of the kind of pictures I'd taken when Maya had been little, her face happy, her feet up in the air as she came down the slide. Well...she came down, but her face was not happy, nor were her feet up in the air. Her speed was at about mach 9 and I clicked this shot off right before she came flying at me. We both nearly landed, legs, arms and other things tangled up in the split rail fence I was leaning against at the time.
Fortunately, she didn't hit me, but she hit all sorts of other things, like hips, knees, hands... I encouraged her to try it again, thinking she'd know what to expect the second time around. I chose to stand off to the side this time. You know, just in case.
She leaned back this go around instead of forward. It all turned out a bit differently, but not necessarily better.
The slide swallowed her up at the top, then spit her out like a rock, skipping across the surface of the water. Only it was Maya's tail end and it skipped along the ground.
Ouch. I felt really bad about encouraging her to try it again. Mom guilt. I was heavy with it. I still am.
All in all, our adventure at the Phillips Family farm was a ton of fun. We missed Steven. Halloween is such a Wing holiday, and we've never been separated for it before. Two weeks. We keep telling each other that...two weeks, and he'll be back home. We tell everybody else that asks, too. I'm pretty sure that almost everyone in Cary knows that we only have two weeks of separation left.
Maya's taken some Advil now, and is doing just fine. We wrapped up our fun pumpkin patch day with a big pizza and a sleep over with Trevor.
I can't help but wonder, where will the pumpkin patch be that we visit next year?
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