Happy Fall!

Finally, finally we get to have Fall again! Fall is part of the year that both Brian and I look forward to, and New Mexico didn't have a clue what Fall is, so we're enjoying it so much more this year.

I found out about a place called Young's Jersey Dairy (http://www.youngsdairy.com/). It is totally one of those places where an entire family could go and have a terrific time! They have a corn maze, a real pumpkin patch (you get to walk out into it and everything!), they have a petting zoo, and tractors for both big and small to climb up on, they have minigolf and a driving range, and a restaurant, it goes on and on and on.

We decided we needed to do something fun, Fall related, and something we could all enjoy this weekend before Brian started school for real. So after checking out their website and spending a rainy, cloudy, overcast Saturday inside finishing up Emma's room (pictures later this week, I promise!), we decided Sunday would be the day! And was it ever.
Sunday was the perfect Fall day, the sun was shining, there was a nice Fall breeze and the temperature felt like Fall. First thing first was some homemade ice cream! Emma is totally obsessed with Ice Cream - not that this surprises Brian or I at all, as I ate tons of it while I was pregnant, and both of our families eat Ice Cream year round. You ask her what she wants for breakfast and her reply most days is "Brrrr" which is Emma speak for ice cream (she can say ice, she says ice pop, but we can't convince her to call ice cream by its real name.), you ask her what she wants for lunch and most days you'll get the same response. So, it was decided that Sunday would be ice cream for lunch day- just this week (we won't tell her that it might get to happen again!). Well, wasn't I just totally thrilled to find they had Pumpkin Ice Cream!!! I could barely contain my excitement (I'm sure my husband will tell you that I didn't contain it at all, not even a little bit!), Brian got brownie chocolate fudge or something like that, and we decided on Cotton candy flavor for Emma because she's obsessed with the color blue. Enjoy our ice cream we did, with much less mess than our trip to Friendly's the weekend before (Note to self: letting your daughter have a cone head covered in hot fudge, yields to quite a mess - we didn't get any pictures for you all to see just how much of a mess, but both Mommy and Emma were wearing hot fudge by the end).
Once we were finished with our ice cream we walked over to see the animals. They had some goats, chickens, ducks, cows, some pigs and a sheep. Emma was thrilled to see the ducks- as its her favorite animal obsession to date. She of course tried to tell me the chickens were ducks but I reminded her they were chickens and she said "Cock-a-doodle-do" (which in our house is what all chickens say, whether they are a rooster or not! Who can argue with a two year old when its soo darn cute to hear her say it!?)

We found a goat, who is the goat version of Gus. You say "WHAT?!" Well, as many of you readers have not ever met Gus, let me explain. Gus is an OVERLY affection dog. Although he weighs in the neighborhood of 70lbs, he is convinced he belongs in your lap, with as much of his body touching your body as he can physically accomplish. Although it was very cute at first (and is for any new comers), it quickly grows old, and annoying. Although, to give the poor dog a little credit, since we moved here and he has more backyard to run and play in, and chase squirrels, he's been far less of a pest. This goat was just like that. He just wanted some love, and by some love, all the love he could possibly get. He was totally unphased by our daughter grabbing ahold of his neck and hugging him (as this is how she shows her affection to most animals - other than Jake, who sees it coming and gets away). His coloring was even very Gus like.

Gus the Goat

There were several Mamma cows looking like they were ready to have baby cows any day, I actually felt bad for them, having looked as big as a pregnant cow days before giving birth to Emma, I felt for them. They had two baby calves that had just been born this week, one on the 24th, and one on Saturday. Walking through and petting the cows reminded me of my days growing up on the dairy farm where Nathan and I went for daycare.

The new calf (not the youngest calf I've ever seen, but still pretty cool!)

Next it was off to see the biggest pumpkin grown on the farm that year and to see the tractors, Emma was excited to climb up on top and sit down and "drive" the tractor!


We had gotten a later start then we had hoped to, so by this point we decided we'd go on a hayride to the pumpkin patch and get our pumpkins and be on our way. Emma was running out of steam quickly, and Mommy and Daddy were running out of patients to deal with a little girl running on empty.

She's not a Daddy's girl or anything is she?!

There is a corn maze not too far from our house that we'll go check out soon, someday well before nap time, and that way Emma can run herself ragged, and we can just come home and put her down for her nap.

How are you all enjoying fall?!