Aplin Farms Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday, Tim and I loaded up the kidlets and drove up to see my sister a couple of towns over. After meeting up with them for lunch at their place, we took a family trip over to Aplin Farms for their annual pumpkin patch. It was AWESOME. It was hands down the BEST pumpkin patch I've ever attended.

When you arrive, the very first thing you see is a huge produce pagoda where they sell pumpkins as well as other produce from their farm such as: apples, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, etc. You can buy pumpkins from that area, but it's much more fun to do the "You pick" pumpkins. They load several people onto these huge tractor-pulled wagons, and then drive you up into the fields where you can pick your own pumpkins, fresh from the fields.

One of their other features is that they also grow large fields of sunflowers! Which they let you pick: FOR FREE! They are SO pretty, but they start to wilt almost immediately after you pick them. We brought home a few and I have them in a vase now. I'm hoping they will start to perk up a little, so that we can enjoy them for a bit longer.

I took quite a few pictures of the sunflowers, but this one with the bee inside of it was my favorite. They also kept a few bee-hives on the farm as well and were selling jars of honey in the produce pagoda. I unfortunately didn't get any, but I'm definitely purchasing a jar next year!



I love this picture of our whole family coming back from the wagon ride. We rarely get any of these, since I'm usually the one behind the camera. There's me, holding Lena; Tim holding Calvin, and of course, NB who is not looking at the camera (typical) but is at least, smiling! I'm going to have this one blown up and framed for above the fireplace. Speaking of fires, another feature of Aplin Farms is that you can arrange to have a bonfire after dark on their property! We've already decided that next year we are going to plan it where more of the family can come so we can have a bonfire and smores after our day of pumpkin picking!





All around the front end of the farm, they have hay bales "dressed up" in costume! We saw spiders and pumpkin hay bales, but our personal favorites were these piggies. (that's my sister, Allie and her b/f's daughter, Haley).

There were also the obligatory "face in hole" photo opportunities, inflatable bouncy slides, a corn maze, reasonably price concessions, an animal barn or two, and train rides. Needless to say, we had an amazing afternoon followed by this:

on the way back to Allie and Jeff's. You can't see Lena because she is rear facing (we're legal that way), but she is having a screaming melt down too! Apparently wedging three tired, cranky, hungry kids into the back seat of a small vehicle brings out the worst in them! I can't WAIT until we get the new car. Only a couple more weeks!!! Anyway, we took them back to my sisters where she was gracious enough to cook all of us an awesome dinner, after which we headed back home. The kids slept most of the way on the home trip, except for the last 20 minutes, in which Calvin woke up and screamed the rest of the way home. I can't wait to go back next year! But, before I go, here is one more sunflower pic.

This one has a grass hopper on it!