Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

I used a personal day on Thursday to go on a field trip with Shane. His school visited a pumpkin patch!

Everyone met at Shane's school to get organized (of course). The boys all played chase.

Shane was the monster.

My son loves to roar.

There were enough parents that almost everyone drove their own child. The patch was less than half an hour away.

Note: Shane didn't really pose nicely when we first arrived. I took that picture later when he'd slowed down a little. No, we started by running, laughing, and screaming with all the other kids as they ran to the animals.

There were a turkeys,...

...goats,...

...and pigs!

And there was a giant bale of hay in the center of it all.

The perfect cheap climbing structure for a swarm of preschool kids.

Shane's room was the first to go on the hayride. 

We got to see lots of cows.

There were calves in the fields, too.

And with the cows, we got to see lots of poop.

Even the baby was in on it.

Carrie hasn't looked up Shane's question yet. Maybe I should remind him.

After the hayride, we gathered to go through the corn maze.

This was the part of the trip I was the most excited about. I loved mazes as a kid. I had never gotten a chance to walk through a corn one. Several of the teachers talked about how hard it was. They said there class had wandered around and around!

Shane was more interested in the corn than the maze.

He tried to eat some of it.

The maze didn't turn out to be much of a maze. It felt like a weirdly shaped figure eight. The corn on the entry side was thin enough I could easily make out the picnic shelter as a point of reference, too. Shane and I went back in several times on our own after everyone else left, amazed they got out alive.

The picnic area had the next big attractions: Lunch and wagons.

Shane loved to pull his friends around.

He proved to be too heavy when one girl tried to go off-roading (Please note: I wasn't the only parent with a camera).

We got in some good practice taking turns.

The final event of the day was to pick a pumpkin. Each kid was allowed a free pie pumpkin. Shane wanted to find the biggest instead (pie pumpkin or not!).

We settled on a nice rich orange one. 

We left not a minute too soon. I had to work to keep Shane awake in the car! He earned his nap marble with ease when his class laid down to rest. 

I really enjoyed spending the day with Shane. I'd love to do something like that with him again.

My substitute loved the day, as well. There were so many kids suspended or absent that he only had a handful of kids to deal with all day! That's a different story, though.

Farewell Pumpkin Patch. I took a picture of the schedule of live music in case we decide to come back on a weekend!