Cox Farm

Yesterday our homeschool co-op went to the Fall Festival at Cox Farm. This is an annual event for the group. We have only gone one other time, 2 years ago, when I was pregnant with Anna. It was expensive and very, very hot. That made it a no-brainer to skip last year, with me again being pregnant and having an infant! Well, this year the co-op leaders said there was enough money in the coffers, due to fundraising, that TnT would pay for everyone to go. Since it is $8 a person for all over 2, this is a significant amount of money--$40 for our family alone! The boys had such a good time when we went last time, and they were so hopeful that we would go this year, since we didn't have to pay, so I decided we would go. I'll be honest though--I was dreading it. As soon as I saw the weather forecast and realized it was going to be humid and in the 90's. Oh man--heat and crowds. My 2 least favorite things!

As you can see from the picture, we made it and survived, but boy was it hot. So very hot. I thought I was going to melt. I pushed the stoller from one shady spot to another as much as I could. Grace did not want to be in the stroller, but I could not fathom putting her in the front pack, so I just tried to keep her distracted by tossing toys at her and keeping moving. I had the double stroller so Anna could ride too. That's another thing about Cox Farm--it's really not made for strollers. It is a bit hilly, and there is gravel and wood chips all over the place so it's not muddy. That is a good thing, except it sure is hard to push a stroller around, especially a great big double one!

So what did we do . . . As soon as we got there, I had to nurse, so Nathan and Luke went on the hay ride with the other co-op kids. Caleb and Jonathan weren't interested, so they stayed with me until I was done, and then they played on and in a hay bale maze until the older boys were back. Cox Farm has a bunch of big slides that they have built up on hillsides. They are neat ones, with turns and bumps and different themes. Nathan and Luke rode all of them, Caleb rode most of them, and Jonathan rode a few of them. He was less enthusiastic after he went really fast down one slide and sort of turned all over during the ride. Luke was a great big brother and took Anna down several of them. She loved them, of course. There are also several of these hay bale mazes for the kids to go through, and there are some big wooden trains to climb on. Those were Caleb and Jonathan's favorites. Nathan and Luke love the big rope swings there, ones where you swing out over a big foam pit and drop in. They did those several times each.

They have animals to see too, including some baby piglets born Sept. 25. They were so cute, but that mama pig was one large lady. Whew! There is also an enclosure where you can go in and feed the goats. I remember when we went 2 years ago how neither Luke nor Caleb liked that, so I can only imagine how hysterical Anna would have been had we attempted that. We just observed the goats from behind the fence, and she was okay with that, LOL.

One of the big draws of the place, at least according to Nathan, is that they have free apple cider and apples from their orchards there, all you can eat and drink! The fresh cool apple cider was indeed restorative and delicious. Anna loved both the cider and having her own apple to munch. It didn't take long before she was a sticky mess. Everyone had 2 apples over the course of our time there, and many cups of cider.

We got there at 10:00, and we had packed a picnic lunch, which we ate about 12:00 (fortunately we found a table in the shade--that is where the picture up top was taken). After we were done there, we headed back to the cider place for a few more cups, and then I nursed one more time. We left about 1:15, all of us being very ready to get cool. As soon as we got home, the boys jumped in the shower, and I gave the girls a bath. Everyone was so sweaty and filthy! I was so glad when I finally got a chance to take a shower. Even so, I think the sun was just too much. I had such a headache the rest of the day. What a wimp! It was only a little over 3 hours, but I guess I just can't take the heat. Actually, I just can't take the heat, the stroller-pushing, the keeping track of 5 little people in a big crowd, the nursing . . . I'm thinking next year TnT will have to pay ME for us to go, LOL! The boys will be so disappointed.