At The Pumpkin Patch

This weekend, we headed to the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm for their pumpkin festival. The Reluctant Cowboy from July became a thing of the past as Frankie eagerly ran up to the ponies and asked to ride. He held on tight and maintained and expression of awe and delight the entire time. He led us through a haystack maze and thoroughly enjoyed painting a pumpkin. We all felt sorry for the kids whose parents wouldn't let them get "messy" or worse yet, made them use markers on the pumpkins because it was cleaner. Frankly, that seemed like child abuse. Unfortunately, the pumpkin patch was not available this year due to the torrential rains of early summer, but we barely noticed. We ended the day with a hay ride where we saw "baby Christmas trees".