The Girls & Their Pumpkins

Today we had so much fun going to the Pumpkin Festival at Hunsader Farms. We've been wanting to go for years but had never gotten around to it, so this year we finally went. We hoped to be able to go and pick our pumpkins out in an actual pumpkin patch but that did not happen. We got the next best thing, picking out our clean pumpkins under a huge tent at the festival. Imogen wasted no time and was so very happy to find the cutest little pumpkin (one so little that it might be more "fun" carving it than usual), Hadley with her perfect medium size pumpkin, and Tatumn with the larger of the three. They picked them out themselves and it took all of two minutes. They didn't even collaborate on the staggered size thing. Too funny. Imogen looks very serious in this picture but she really had a good time being able to choose herself. After picking out pumpkins, we went and saw all the farm animals from pigs, to goats, bunnies, chickens, ponies, llamas, and turkeys and others I'm forgetting to mention. Then, Imogen and Hadley rode the ponies (the first time doing this) and I can say that Imogen got more enjoyment out of this than Hadley. Hadley was a bit preoccupied about falling off. Tatumn walked beside her and kept her on, so no real worries there. From the ponies, we went to the barn where Hadley played the washboard, Tatumn played the dancing wooden dolls on wooden boards, and Imogen shook a maracan egg. I helped with playing the spoons as an older married couple played the fiddle and sang Old MacDonald. Of course, there were many other children helping out with other instruments as well. What a fun group! Next were elephant ears (we all split one) and fried pickles (we split one of these as well). After enjoying a sinfully good snack, we headed to the corn maze where we let the kids call the shots and pretended to be lost the entire time. We then caught a bit of the local circus and their acts and then headed for home in order to make a late lunch/early dinner and finish the evening off with Tate's fourth soccer game this weekend (she had a tournament). Whew! We decided we have to make Hunsader Farms a tradition for as long as we're in Florida. It's a great fall festival that takes you a bit away from palm trees and saltwater air and almost makes you feel like you're in someplace other than Florida, midwest-like.... It almost felt like home.