Punkins

On Saturday we made the trek to Tanaka Farms in Irvine, California along with some dear friends of ours. It was about an hour's drive from where we live but was the closest "true pumpkin patch" we could find. By "true pumpkin patch" I mean one in which the pumpkins are still on the vine - not in a box at the grocery store or piled up on bales of hay on a street corner next to an orange and black bounce house. I really, really wanted my girls to experience the kinds of pumpkin patches that I grew up with rather than the normal LA pumpkin patches.

Welcome to Tanaka Farms!

Mom, this pumpkin is stuck!

The kids quickly discovered all of the activities that could be done at Tanaka Farms that cost extra money. Funny...I don't remember that from my childhood pumpkin patch experiences.

The older kids had a great time riding pedal cars through a pumpkin maze...

How do you make this thing go?

...while the little ones had fun playing in the dirt.

Look, I found a fossil!

The kids had a lot of fun with our friends...

Zinash and our friend, S.

Mihret and her "brother," D.

...and they both came home with some pumpkins that they got to pick off the vines themselves.

Okay, Dada...I'll take that big one over there...

Pumpkin Picking Expert

I'm glad that we went, but to be honest, it felt a little strange to be sweating at the pumpkin patch and to see at least half the pumpkins rotting on the vine because it was so hot outside. It was also pretty comical to go through a corn maze that wasn't even close to tasseling. Definitely not "knee high by the fourth of July."

Our friends, D. and S., finding their way through a really easy corn maze

So although I'm glad that my girls got to choose a pumpkin off the vine, it wasn't exactly the pumpkin patch experience I had in mind. Next year I think I need to just allow my family to embrace the LA experience. We'll go to the corner of Huntington and Myrtle, pick out a perfectly round pumpkin, jump in the orange and black bounce-house, and then go out for ice cream.