Let Fall Begin!

  Friday was Ethan's first (of 11) day of Fall Break.  The teachers had to stay for professional development, so my friend Mary and I (who are in charge of PTA Teacher Appreciation) organized a breakfast for them.  Einstein bagels and cream cheese, yogurt, granola, fruit...

 and coffee of course (plus milk and orange juice).

 Einstein Bagels will donate all of their left over bagels to non profit organizations.  We got well over 200 I think.  We emptied these two garbage bags and sorted all of the bagels by type.  I wish I had a picture of that effort; the family room was quite the site with bagels all over.

After the teachers were taken care of, we went to a Pumpkin Patch!  We went to the same one last year, and really like it.

 Sack races!  We actually did race, even if these pictures don't show it well.

 Family pictures!

 Benton was very excited to ride the horses!

Stick horse races.

The boys LOVE the hay maze.

This water ducky race was new and a big hit with our boys.

 Attempted selfie.  Ethan got cut out.

 Ethan was very excited to get a pumpkin.

 Benton was interested in the pumpkin until the train came.  They have a train pulled by a tractor that takes you to the pumpkin patch, but it had a flat tire, so we took a hayride instead.  When the tractor was fixed, they drove it right out to the pumpkins knowing how anxious our boys had been to ride.  Benton dropped the pumpkins and ran to the train.

 Train ride!

 Benton liked the petting zoo.  "Awww...so cute."

 There were baby pics of various sizes.

 Ethan was apprehensive and didn't touch any of the animals.

 Baby cows!

 This pumpkin patch has a lot of little activities like ring toss, bean bag toss, and this critter throwing game.

 Ethan liked the gold panning and digging for gold in troughs full of rocks and gold.  He made sure to say over and over that the gold wasn't real.  He asked out they made the gold and eventually the guy gave in and showed Ethan a bowl of rocks and the gold spray paint he uses to make them.  Ethan didn't figure out, however, that he wasn't actually finding gold out of the water.  The pans were actually prestocked with gold rocks covered in regular rocks, but the kids didn't notice until after they swished the pan in the water, moving the rocks around.  After picking out the gold, Ethan started putting the pan back in to find more gold.

 They got to bag and keep the gold.

 Ethan was asking if we can come every year and was very excited that I said yes.  It is still in the 90s during the day, but the nights are in the 60s and we are ready for Fall!