Three Octobers ago we took Scotty to a Garden center pumpkin patch in South Provo (see here). They had the corn pit, the pumpkin patch, the corn maze, etc. It was so cute getting the pictures of our six month old Scotty and having a family outing. Basically, we were sold- sign us up for the basic Utah annual pumpkin patch trip with the kids. This might have also been the moment we officially traded in our cards as independent unhindered adults for parent cards.
Last year's pumpkin patch excursion was so so bad (here). I'd heard about this place on Facebook, it sounded awesome but instead it was tiny and packed. We parked on a one way dirt road. The corn pit was dismal and Scotty was scared of the blow up slides. And it was hot and the set up was lame and I was like welp, we're never doing that again.
But since we'd already committed to this whole parenting thing and making memories is part of the gig, we softened and decided to try again. This year's attempt was a tale of two patches- and what was going to be a one hour adventure turned into four hours. But we did it and it actually ended up being really fun. We planned to go to this place five minutes from our house an hour before lunch. We'd go, sit in the corn pool, go on the slides, take some pumpkin pictures and get out of there.
It was dead when we got there and soon it was clear why- instead of charging a flat fee or offering free stuff to incentivize people to come buy pumpkins it was a nickel and dime fest. They wanted a $1 for a kid to play in the corn pool for 5 minutes!!
I had perviously mentioned going back to the South Provo patch because then we could see family down there and David suggested us going there right then instead. It's getting close to lunch/nap time but I said, "sure, we'll have to grab lunch" and off we spontaneously went.
We grabbed Chom Burger in Provo with the uncles (Hunter, Preston and Gage) who were conveniently grocery shopping together. When we told Hunter where the patch was he was like "uh oh"- his ward had recently tried to go to that patch and it wasn't open this year!! After a quick internet search we found a patch in Pleasant Grove that looked good.
And this place did not skimp on the corn pools and troughs too.
Russell eventually stopped trying to eat the corn after the 500th time his hand got knocked away from his face, haha.
And these pictures are what happens when you're over an hour past nap time. There is just no way you're smiling or looking at the camera.
Last year's pumpkin patch excursion was so so bad (here). I'd heard about this place on Facebook, it sounded awesome but instead it was tiny and packed. We parked on a one way dirt road. The corn pit was dismal and Scotty was scared of the blow up slides. And it was hot and the set up was lame and I was like welp, we're never doing that again.
But since we'd already committed to this whole parenting thing and making memories is part of the gig, we softened and decided to try again. This year's attempt was a tale of two patches- and what was going to be a one hour adventure turned into four hours. But we did it and it actually ended up being really fun. We planned to go to this place five minutes from our house an hour before lunch. We'd go, sit in the corn pool, go on the slides, take some pumpkin pictures and get out of there.
It was dead when we got there and soon it was clear why- instead of charging a flat fee or offering free stuff to incentivize people to come buy pumpkins it was a nickel and dime fest. They wanted a $1 for a kid to play in the corn pool for 5 minutes!!
I had perviously mentioned going back to the South Provo patch because then we could see family down there and David suggested us going there right then instead. It's getting close to lunch/nap time but I said, "sure, we'll have to grab lunch" and off we spontaneously went.
Scotty's favorite part was this junky playhouse. She'd have been happy if she could have spent the entire time in there.
She loved the bunny house though she kept want to pick them up but wasn't aggressive enough to do it. I put a couple on her lap but she wouldn't really hold them and they'd run away. We also visited the goat enclosure and she wasn't into them so we didn't stay.
It wasn't cheap but it was 1 million times better than the patch by our house and we probably spent as much as we would have had to there anyways. I even got to go down the granary slide and screamed a little it was so fast, haha. Don't worry, a cute second grader in line before me told me it was only scary the first time and she had gone down it last year as a first grader and had been fine.
I can't wait to try this again with a little bit older kids who can play more on all the fun stuff but I'm still glad we made it happen this year.
