A Day at the Didier Farm

While Sasha was on a field trip for school to a local park(he gets a field trip every Friday - cool school), I got a note from my good friend, Chris, asking if we'd like to join her and her nieces for an outing. Sure!

After collecting Sasha from the bus and loading all the kiddo 'stuff' into the car (seriously I need a master list for all the items that are needed for a kiddie outing. For two small people, they really need a lot of stuff!), we set off to Wendy's. Wendy's, as you might have guessed, is one of Sasha's favorite fast food places. This was completely taught to him by Ice Iowa and Grandma Jan. Sasha can spot Wendy from a couple miles away and squeels in glee, "WENDY"! I think he may actually marry a girl named Wendy especially if she can make Frostys.

After lunch we set out. Mia took a little cat nap with JP (an elephant named after my Dad that we rescued from a cache ) in the backseat while Sasha talked non-stop. Seriously, all you parents that are wishing for your child to speak be warned. They will!

We arrived to see bright orange pumpkins everywhere and Sasha started going down the list of all the things he wanted to do as we pulled off the street. "I want to ride the strawberries, I want to go down that slide, I want to .... fill in the blank with every ride there". We purchased our tickets and off we went.

I had been wanting to get Sasha on a pony forever. They had ponies so I was excited to see how Sasha liked them with visions of future riding lessons dancing in my head (I took lessons when I was 5 or 6 and it really makes all the difference in how you feel about horse back riding as an adult). He was first in line so was able to pick out his horse - a white pony named Tex. How appropriate. As the ponies started up, a smile lit up his whole face. This was cool! He yelled YeeHaw each time he passed and another little girl joined in - a little tribute to Texas playing out on a crisp fall day in northern Illinois. He loved it. As the ponies ended their tour of duty and the attendant came over to help him off, he asked about the horse in front of his, "What's his name". She told him. Then he wanted to know the next horse's name. She told him and he gave her a little pat. And, so on and so on until he had met all the ponies. Even with ponies, he has to be the 'mayor' and know everyone's names and make sure they are all doing fine. The attendant commented that usually boys don't like the ponies and it tends to be more of a little girl activity. Is it large? Could you get really hurt on it? Well then .. it must be an activity that Sasha would like!

We proceeded to the spinning strawberries and Abby and Kaitlin found the perfect one and Sasha hustled in after them. Sasha is quite the expert on rides with a wheel after Six Flags. In no time flat, the team had the strawberry spinning. We stood watching all thanking God that these rides were built for little people so that we didn't have to go along. After all, it's hard to be a good photographer when you're spinning :)

Next, we were off to the dragon train. Even Mia got to ride on this one and, as you might expect, she took the opportunity to wave to the onlookers like a princess on a float.

Notice that Sasha is focused on driving - this is serious business driving a dragon while the little Miss waves to her subjects. It still amazes me how different our two munchkins are.

Our next stop was the petting zoo. We bought three cups of zoo food and off we went. First up was the llama. I encouraged them not to pat his head (patting his head makes llama's think you're picking a fight and could result in him spitting at you - yuck). This llama was a bit skittish so it would've been hard to get to his head which is good as kids rarely listen to sage advice from adults. He gladly scarfed down the food. We saw lambs, ducks, chickens, a pot belly pig who was too cute and some hair loving goats. Seriously, these goats decided that Abby's hair tasted good and tried to consume her hair. It didn't hurt her but let's just say that her hair was in need of another shampoo after we left those goats.

Next up was the scrambler. The kids loaded into different carts so that it would 'balance' better (that made me a little nervous). This is Sasha's kind of ride!

For our final station, we choice the inflatable bouncing pit. Sasha proclaimed this his favorite 'ride' of the day. I thought we might have to blast our kids out of there. Even Mia got in on the fun when the attendant took her and let her bounce on the slide.

And, of course, we had to try to get some good munchkin - pumpkin photos. I have to tell you that Sasha is an old pro at photos. You can set him down almost anywhere and tell him to smile and he gets this big grin (and it doesn't look quite as phony as his first photo smiles). You can usually point a camera at Mia and she too will break out in a huge grin. This was not the case with the pumpkin patch. She was hacked! How dare we take her from her chariot to place her on the ground - yuck - with a bunch of messy pumpkins and her crazy brother! No amount of coaxing was going to salvage this photo so it is here. Remember, she is cute and can be fun but she can have her moments too.

We finished our afternoon with a stop for apple donuts and apple cider. Then, we headed to the shop to purchase two sacks of apples for apple pies and Sasha and I picked out 'Ken', the coolest pumpkin ever and we all headed back to the car.

Despite my belief / wish that the munchkins would fall into a deep sleep and quiet would envelop me on the drive home - no such luck. They jabbered on and on, never taking a breath for the whole journey home. I can't believe I ever worried about whether Sasha would talk. I need to be more careful what I wish for!

Happy Fall Y'all!