This past weekend started out with a bit of a rough patch, with Craig having severe stomach and back pains late in the week (seems to have just been a 48-hour thing), rainy weather looking to spoil anything fun, and the news that Craig had been exposed yet again to COVID courtesy of a co-worker (this is case #3 for those keeping track, two of which he had direct exposure to). Of course, legally he can't be told who it was, so it's hard for him to know just how much exposure he had and how big the risk is. We're hoping he can figure it out this week, but he did test negative in a home rapid test on Sunday, so hopefully he'll be OK. It's just one more thing we didn't need after all the sickness the previous week.
Because of the rain, our only plans for the weekend were some training for Jacob on Saturday morning, Carter's last soccer game Saturday afternoon, and going to our favorite gluten-free place to pick up October-only donuts for Jacob (plus pizza for dinner). The rain was so bad overnight Friday and into Saturday that Carter's game got canceled, which surprised me because he played in the midst of similar rain over the summer, but maybe they figured the fall season just wasn't worth it. That was actually a bit of a bummer with it being his last game. I didn't really want to sit in the rain (though it did lighten up a bit when the game would have actually happened), but getting that year-end closure and proper good-bye is always nice.
We had come to the realization in the past week or so that it might be impossible to get to our favorite pumpkin patch this year. The first weekend of October, Jacob had a tournament and Carter had soccer on Saturday, then Sunday was rainy. Last weekend the illnesses pretty much ruled it out (as if soccer and the baptism weren't enough), and this weekend soccer and rain were getting in the way. Next weekend is an out-of-town tournament, and the weekend after Craig will be working. It seemed like it wouldn't work, so to be safe, on our way to dinner Saturday we stopped at a local farm stand and picked out some pumpkins. We picked a medium-sized orange one to carve, a cool white one with green and orange-red veining that lays perfectly on its side, and a small green gourd with a cool shape. They will all live on our porch for now. While I was deciding, Craig decided it was a good photo op.
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| If you look to the far right, almost at the middle of the picture, you can see a pumpkin like the white/multicolored one we got. They had some fun ones! |
We very much enjoyed our dinner of pizza, a panini for Craig, and gluten-free donuts and cookies, although we've decided we should always just order the sheet pizza instead, particularly during donut season since they both need a day's advance ordering. It's all just too good and one pizza is barely enough!
Sunday morning was Bible Sunday at church. While Bible Sunday came with some fanfare when Jacob got his as part of his Sunday School class years ago, it's now a super interactive family experience. We all came in for a 20 minute presentation, and then went to our own family tables where the elders handed out the Bibles. The parents had to walk the kids through some notable elements of these Bibles (they have some really helpful book introductions and colored sections to group the books into themes) and then help them find family-favorite verses to highlight or bookmark. I brought the Bible I got for Confirmation, which I also used for all of my college Bible studies, retreats, and Sundays at church, so it's full of underlines, highlights, and notes (not to mention devotional pages, bookmarks, family funeral pressed flowers, and other random memories). I don't have high hopes that he will read it on his own often, but it was nice to give him a little head start.
I've taken who knows how many of these selfies on the hayride/wagon ride, so of course we needed another!
Had to grab a family photo op that would fit all three guys, right before venturing into the corn maze.
We apparently really suck at corn mazes. For the second year in a row, we followed the instructions (follow the left hedge) and still ended up popping out at the same "escape" exit rather than the actual one. I don't know what our problem is!
As usual, the boys spent a bunch of time playing at the sports activity, although they oddly spent significantly more time throwing footballs than basketballs. Even Carter held his own!
Jacob's throws were so hard that when they hit the backdrop, they would rebound directly back out and nearly hit us! Kid's got an arm! Craig was quietly bemoaning not keeping him in baseball, because he's pretty sure he could have been a good pitcher.
This game of tetherball looks pretty innocent, but a) Craig dominated in his quest to wrap it around completely; and b) as we were wrapping up, Jacob went to grab the rope as Carter was apparently still hitting it (even though we were done), and because it moved, Jacob slammed his hand up against the metal pole. Given how cold it was, it really hurt and he was pretty grumpy for a bit. I figured that would derail the whole day, but once he warmed up a bit, he was right back into it.
Wouldn't be a visit without shooting produce at targets. We slingshotted giant apples (apparently they were out of small pumpkins), and then shot smaller ones. If you zoom in on this picture, you can see Carter's apple mid-shot, just a little above the end of the gun!
We somehow missed the camels, but did catch a glimpse of this giant kangaroo, who was part of a hands-on (extra charge) experience featuring a baby kangaroo and a couple other animals. This guy was sleeping like this apparently, because he definitely seemed to be dreaming. But how he was lounged out like that cracked us up!
We had fun as usual on the zipline and the Billy Goat Mountain slides. Our family races on the zipline and racing slides are quite competitive, and the tube slide is always good for a thrill.
As we walked back to the front of the farm, Carter remembered this tree house with a slide. I went down it too, and it was pretty fast!
We all did rides on the big slides out front next to the hay bale mountain, and I have to admit, the view from up top was gorgeous, even without the fall colors!
Jacob insisted we take a picture on the hay bales, which I have often tried to do, and actually it did make our Christmas card last year, as I recall. So we did it again!
Carter had initially passed on jumping on the giant pillow, but Jacob convinced him. It didn't last long, mind you, between Jacob inexplicably knocking him over and both kids having trouble staying on their feet. But Carter seemed to be having fun for a bit!
The boys ran off to fake-milk a cow, and had no interest in seeing the farm animals with me. But the sheep and tiny goat were cute...
And another tiny goat!
The cow was very sweet and surprisingly soft to pet.
I love the emus, John and Deere. They're always so oddly photogenic. Such intense stares!
After getting some apple cider slushies, we wrapped things up and headed to the store for a quick look around. There happened to be this armadillo on display. I'm not sure I've ever seen one in person and I found it quite interesting to watch, from his little "helmet" to the way he wiggled around.
And with that, kettle corn in hand, we were off. I guess I feel lucky we got at least one more full family trip in before the teenage moodiness creeps in. Jacob's an odd kid sometimes so maybe this will be one of the few things that survives, but I doubt it--it gets everyone eventually, I think! At least Carter still has a few fun years left in him! But it's always stressful to worry about getting there among all the busyness and cruddy weather that October can bring, so I'm thankful that's in the books for another year.
As a side note, while we were waiting in line for the zip line, Carter asked me how long we've been going to Stokoe. I smiled as I remembered our first trip, way back in 2007. Craig and I had free passes from him having the Farm's reindeer (with a baby!) out to a Rochester Rattlers "Christmas in July" game that summer. We had no idea something like this existed, at least not to this degree--I guess we didn't have many friends with kids at the time and we weren't on social media back then. We had a blast, even as two adults without kids.
Gosh, we were just a couple kids. We didn't know at the time, but I was newly pregnant with Jacob. Our best guess is that it happened sometime the previous weekend, as the prior Friday I had a negative test and started some medication early the next week. The period that was supposed to come after the medicine never came, but I didn't figure out why for a few more weeks after the Stokoe trip. I always look back at this set of pictures--the last set of us together before we knew--in awe that so much was happening and we had no idea! How times have changed! Now we have two big kids and are only a few years away from winding down this entire pumpkin patch stage of our lives...at least until grandkids, I guess!
It's been a pretty great run, though--we've only missed two years since we made it a point to start going when Jacob was two, and those two years we did check out different options so we weren't pumpkin-less. I know weather and schedules were a factor back then, too, but I can't help but wonder if we didn't exactly make it a priority those two years, which happened to fall around the time when Jacob's behavior troubles were really starting to ramp up. Maybe the massiveness of Stokoe felt like a bit much, not to mention the risky financial investment with such an unpredictable kid. Free stuff probably just seemed easier. But Stokoe will always be special--and looking back through our pictures just now was pretty amazing. I do appreciate the handful of other places we've checked out, too--even if none compare in the kids' minds.
It always might seem like just a few hours on a fall day where we spend too much money and wrangle kid attitudes, but it turns out those afternoons are what family memories are made of all these years later. And I think that's why the kids insist on going--Stokoe is fall to them. So, it'll keep happening until they prefer it doesn't. And thankfully, this was not the year!
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