A visit to the pumpkin patch

Like I mentioned in my previous post, we took our annual pumpkin patch road trip down to Cedar Hill Farms a couple of weekends ago.

I think this is our third visit to Cedar Hill Farms, and we absolutely love it! 

There is SO much for the kids to do.

As soon as we got there, in true Isabella fashion, she took her time and 

was rather methodical in picking the perfect little pumpkin.

Sam on the other hand, decided his time was better spent climbing as high as he could.

From there, we moved on to face painting. 

I gave you a little taste of what that looked like. 

BTW, if anyone is in the market for a face painter you may want to consider using Ms. Pickles. We hired her for Sam's first birthday party and for Isabella's Carnival birthday. She is super nice, talented, affordable, and a HUGE hit with the kids. We would definitely use her again! So call or e-mail me if you'd like her contact info.

I just had to share this one with you guys since it totally cracks me up!

The pony rides are one of the highlights of the visit for the kids. 

They actually rode them three times!

Isabella is an old pro when it comes to the pony rides.

But this was the first year Sam rode them all by himself. 

And apparently I neglected to take a photo of it. 

Oops!

He is such a big boy!

Taking a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch wreaked some serious havoc on my sinuses was super fun! The kids love all the open spaces they have to run wild in, and Scott and I love watching them exhaust enjoy themselves.

Again, Isabella took her time examining all the pumpkins at the patch 

and making sure she was picking the "perfect" one.

Sam literally picked up the first one he came across and called it a day.

And he was oh SO proud!

In addition to all of this we fed the farm animals, watched the pigs race, the kids played in the maze and a couple of the playgrounds, we ate some yummy fudge, and we stocked up on pumpkins and gourds.

I think I speak for both Scott and I when I say that our annual visit to Cedar Hill Farms has definitely turned into one of our favorite Fall traditions!

You can read about some of our previous visits here and here.

Tennessee Safari Park

OK, so here we are, almost the middle of July and I'm working on my first post of the month. Pathetic, I know! But seriously, try as I may, I can't even begin to explain the lack of time and/or motivation I have for sitting and writing these days.

And even worse, after being a reading machine for months, even that has come to a screeching halt. I swear it took me almost a month to get through the book I just finished. And it's not because it was a particularly bad book, because it wasn't. It's all due to my severe lack of time/motivation.

All I know is that whoever came up with the phrase "Lazy Summer Days" was totally and absolutely clueless. Cause our summer has been everything but lazy! And truth be told, I need to remedy that PRONTO, or I will most certainly lose my mind!

Between art camp, swim lessons, VBS, and more swim lessons, my days are like a whirlwind of activity.

Anyway, I'd like to take a second to slow down enough to share with you some pictures of one of our latest outings. A couple weekends ago we decided to visit the Tennessee Safari Park in Alamo, TN. We had invited my parents to come along with us, but when my brother and his family got wind of our plans, they decided this was an adventure they could not miss. So off we all went.

The first part of the visit consists of a drive-thru safari park, where you buy buckets of food and feed the animals while you drive through their "safari". I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty fun! The kids had a blast holding their buckets out the windows for the animals to come up to the car to eat.

This is my nephew, obeying the do not get out of the car rule...well, kinda!

These animals were definitely not shy.

They eagerly walked up to every single car on the path.

OK, so funny story. 

This ostrich ran up the car and after he ate out of Scott's bowl, 

he made his way to Sam, who was hanging his bowl out the back window.

Sam decided it would be so much more fun to actually hand feed this bird. The ostrich pecked once, and then again, and then decided Sam's fingers looked so delicious, he stuck Sam's entire hand inside it's beak. Well, needless to say our boy was screaming his head off. And once we realized he was OK, and was more shaken up than anything else, we laughed our heads off. And he looked at us and yelled: "THAT BIRD ALMOST ATE ME!" In hindsight, I think he felt a bit indignant at our laughing. But trust me, had you been there, you would have laughed too!

Anyhoo, we continued on our trek of feeding animals. 

Well, all of us, except for Sam.

He continued on, but refused to feed!

;)

Luckily, after a very traumatic 5 minutes, 

our boy was fully recovered from his "near-death experience". 

Ha Ha Ha!

Oh, the drama!

Once you finish the drive-thru aspect, then you go on to their petting zoo.
We had to buy more food (we had saved some from the drive-thru part without realizing we couldn't feed it to the petting zoo animals), some carrots and some milk.

Here I am feeding the giraffe some carrots.

This was definitely my favorite part!

The kids were loving the goats, sheep and deer.

We took a little break to get some rest, shade/air (boy, it was HOT!), snacks, and photos.

Hello, Mr. Monkey!

 Are these two not the cutest?

 

Work it, girl, with yo' gorgeous self!

And then we decided since we still had food left over from our first go-round, 

we would drive around the safari again and then head back home.

We had some new visitors:

Some very persistent visitors:

Yeah, this bull followed us for the longest time.

Regardless of the speed we were going.

He would not stop eating the food.

He stuck his entire head in our car.

And even after we put the window up, he continued to follow us.

Even licking the window.

We were dying laughing!

And some return visitors:

Remember him?

Sam certainly did!

And this is what he looked like at that specific moment:

Did you notice his hands strategically hidden between his legs?

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!

See? It's still funny!

It turned out to be a very fun day!

But let me give you a couple tips, in case you decide to visit:

(1) They only accept cash.

Good thing someone told me this beforehand, since we NEVER carry cash, 

and they do not have an ATM on the premises.

 and

(2) You might want to pack snacks/drinks for your visit.

They actually do sell stuff there, but it is EXPENSIVE!

Fairfield Bay, Arkansas

OK, so I've sat down to work on this post like three times now, and something always seems to come up. So I'm just going to bite the bullet here and get as much as I can done, and we'll see what we end up with. Hopefully it won't turn out to be a crazy mess. Keep your fingers crossed...

Last week, the family and I headed to the Arkansas mountains for a much needed vacation. In all honesty, I had no idea what to expect. I mean, come on,... we were going to the mountains of Arkansas. Between you and me, I may have had a scene or two from the movie Deliverance playing in my sub-conscience on our way there.

These two were SO excited to go on vacation:

It took us a bit longer than we had anticipated to get there.  

(Darn MapQuest!) 

But alas, we made it. 

I was so relieved to walk into our condo and see that is was WAY more updated than the photos we had seen revealed. And the kids immediately found their room and did the first thing you always do when you arrive at your vacation destination...

Jump on the beds, of course!

Although we managed to do a whole lot during the week we were there, we also managed to rest quite a bit and sleep in and take glorious naps. We only had one scheduled event during our stay, so other than that, we pretty much let the chips fall where they may. Which was such a nice departure from the jam packed vacations we've taken in the past.

Anyway, here are some snapshots from our week in Fairfield Bay, Arkansas:

We hiked the Indian Rock Cave Trail, 

which lead us to some amazing Indian caves the kids LOVED exploring.

It's hard to really show the size of this one specific cave. 

As you can see Scott looks tiny!

It was absolutely fantastic!

Scott said this was his favorite vacation adventure!

We played mini golf:

And what I remember most is laughing.

Hard!

Oh yeah, and sweating. 

A lot.

It was a scorcher of a day.

And this was our one scheduled event of the week.

And it was totally worth waking up early for.

We rented a pontoon boat for 4 hours and enjoyed every single second of it.

Isabella shocked us a number of times during the week.

Especially with her love for tubing and swimming in the lake.

I would have NEVER expected that from her.

But we're so glad she was open to experiencing new things.

Sam, on the other hand, was leery of it all.

He enjoyed the boat ride, the music, the dancing, the napping, the eating and the drinking.

But he definitely preferred to stay out of the water.

He did, however, say that this was his favorite vacation adventure. 

Like I mentioned earlier, Isabella was full of surprises this week.

One of the local country clubs hosted a kids' karaoke night.

Straight out of left field, Isabella decided she was going to sing.

She stood by her brother and her Daddy, in front of everyone, 

and sang Jesus Loves Me!

It was ADORABLE! 

And then she walked up to a teenager and asked if she would like to sing with her.

Huh?

 Who is this adventurous girl?

Together they sang You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift.

SO cute!

One day we decided to make the hour trip to go see the 

Blanchard Springs Caverns in Mountain View, Arkansas.

It was stunning!

It reminded me so much of our caves back home in Puerto Rico.

This was definitely my favorite vacation adventure.

And then we swung by the Blanchard Springs 

and enjoyed dipping our feet into the nice 58°F water.

The views were unbelievably beautiful.

There's something so peaceful about being surrounded by nature.

Well, except maybe when you come face to face with this:

Yes dear friends, that is a snake.

EEEKKK!

We also enjoyed a puppet show, grilling out and making smores.

And let's not forget the swimming pool.

We spent a whole lot of time playing at the pool.

So, there you have it, our vacation in a nutshell.

☺

By the end of the week, we'd had no Deliverance-related issues.

We loved every minute of it.

And we can't wait to go back!

Oh, and as for what Isabella's favorite vacation adventure was...

When asked, she smiles really big and says: 

EVERYTHING!