Pumpkin Patch

One thing I was a little bummed about when we moved to Las Vegas was missing the beautiful fall weather and activities.  I really enjoyed taking Ann and Ian to an orchard/pumpkin patch last year and had been looking forward to doing it again this year.  I decided to see if there was by chance anything like that here.  And lo and behold, there happens to be an orchard in Las Vegas (yes, one, in the entire county - I just checked to see if there were others than the one we went to).  And fortunately, it was only about a 10-15 minute drive from where we live.  So the week before Halloween, I took Ann and Ian out to Gilcrease Orchard to pick pumpkins.

This was the morning before getting ready to go to the Orchard.  Ian's definitely at the age where he wants to feed himself, but can be super messy about it (though he's improved a lot in the just the last few weeks since this).

Since I wanted to get out the door in good time (we needed to be able to come back for lunch before it was time to take Ann to preschool), Ian got a quick rinse down in the kitchen sink (he was covered in yogurt - all over his face, hands, arms and in his hair too).

Ann helped me get Ian's towel to dry him off.

And we finally made it to the orchard!  It was a really bright, sunny day.  Ann found a pumpkin she wanted almost right away.  

Ian was a trooper and was okay with being in the stroller the majority of the time.

We walked down the rows of pumpkins and finally found one for Ian.  He LOVED that pumpkin and was more than happy to just sit there and hold it.

Just a cute little boy and his pumpkin

Ann had fun climbing around this cut-out prop (I took the above picture of Ian while I was over here with Ann).

"Now take a picture of me as a squash!"

"Now the tomato!"

I took Ian out of his stroller for a little bit to take some more pictures.  I had to pry that pumpkin away from him though - he didn't want to let go!

A picture among the pumpkins.  This was about the best I could get - especially with having no help to get kids to look at the camera combined with the bright sun.

There were a couple of these types of signs that we passed by (there was at least another that said "How an apple grows").  Ann was pointing out the words after I told her what it said.  She then wanted me to tell her what each stage of the process was.

Before leaving we went down and bought some apple cider donuts to share.  They put a little dollop of cinnamon frosting on them too.  They were very yummy!