"Pumpkin Maze!"

Ezra has become enjoyable company again. Even if we go somewhere! And he realized (again) that he does in fact love his father. Add in the fact that Seth is soon leaving for a week and I really wanted us to try to get in a family date before his trip.

All month long Facebook has been full of people's pumpkin patch adventures, and, gradually the idea grew on me enough to suggest it to Seth. We might have gone to a corn maze in high school? but we couldn't really remember. Besides that, I'm pretty sure I've never gone to a corn maze and I just didn't think it would be all that much fun (especially because of what I thought was all.the.hype).

We're also not sure what we think in regards to Halloween/fall festival, etc., celebrations. I grew up with Reformation Day/Reformers celebrations being the focus of October and Seth grew up with parents very, very opposed to anything Halloween-ish (like pumpkin carving). And in general, we don't really make a big deal out of holidays and such.

Does that paint the picture? We were pretty skeptical.

But when Seth's job got cancelled last minute (11pm the night before!?!) we decided to make Friday our family day.

The boys woke us all up by 7am (lovely, right? except this morning they woke us up at 5:30am). Seth was going to go to a coffee shop to work on the computer in peace, but Ezra freaked out when Seth started walking out the door, grabbing at his bag and trying to pull him back into the house. (!?!?) So Seth stayed, hiding away in the bedroom to make phone calls... but it wasn't too long before Ezra slipped in there as I was distracted by Isaac.

I heard them talking, but assumed Ezra would pop back out again in a few seconds. But he didn't... and he didn't... When I finally got curious and peaked in, they were cuddled up on the bed watching Curious George on the laptop! So adorable. I love it when Ezra deigns to cuddle with Seth.

After cuddle time was over, Seth dictated e-mails to me and I washed dishes and packed our bags and made lunch... and then off we went to Maris Farms!

It's rather a long drive, I suppose. I always pretend like it isn't, since I want to justify driving so far for piano lessons, but it was a good 45 minutes from our house. Ezra did look sleepy towards the end, so we ate pumpkin cookies and potato chips (nutritious!) and sang "What Does the Fox Say?" to keep him awake.

And then we arrived. There's an episode of Curious George where George goes through a corn maze (which Ezra talked about on the drive out there), so he totally knew what to expect. Of course, he also got very distracted...

He bee-lined to the tractor and wanted to drive it.

But then we found the sheep and goats! And even bought a quarter's worth of feed out of the dispenser (which he's very interested in, thanks to Uncle David's recent  of a candy machine in my parents' living room...

We took a ride, sitting on hale bales in a trailer pulled by a big orange tractor.

We admired pumpkins and stomped in thick mud.

We enjoyed all of the activities in their play area, including tunnels and spider webs and bouncy houses.

And we also walked through the corn maze, but we didn't take photos of it, I guess. We definitely, definitely got our $10 worth. It was a fantastic family date.