Sliding through October

I have spent most of October sliding...literally.

On the last day of the government furlough, our family visited Ticonderoga Farms. This place has a big pumpkin festival with lots of slides, a hay ride, animals, playgrounds, and a GIGANTIC outdoor pillow. A pillow? Yes, and it's the coolest. My mom said it was the perfect blend of a moon bounce and a trampoline and it was enormous! Seriously one of the coolest outdoor toys ever.

Gates spent most of the day "strolling" the farm, but he didn't seem to mind.

 

 
At school I decided to test out a slide going face first. No one else was doing this so I thought I'd show everyone how much fun it could be. Whooosh...I was flying...then splat. Splat is the sound your face makes when it hits the bark chips at lightening speed. It wasn't pretty. The medical term for my injury was "playground bark burn to the face," or at least that's what my teacher called it. I'll admit, I was a bit stunned. And I definitely don't recommend it. But the death slide did earn me legendary status on the playground, so it was definitely worth it.

My dad headed back to work but my mom, brother, and I didn't let that stop us from finding more outdoor fall fun. Our most recent find was Pumpkinville! (Doesn't it just sound like a fun place?!?!) This place is an extension of the Leesburg Animal Park which is open year round. During fall, they add a ton of stuff and call it Pumpkinville. So not only did it have cool giant slides, it had SEVEN outdoor moonbounces, a huge pirate ship for climbing, tons of animals, pony rides, a climbing spider web, a teepee, bike go-carts, and two camels! My buddy Dru and I spent the day wiping out on everything and we laughed and laughed and laughed. She's awesome.

Check out my mom on the swing. I'm told there's a video of her "takeoff" which was pretty hilarious. Are mom's supposed to do this kind of stuff? And check out me, my brother, Dru, and her mom just stranded in a pack of wild animals. My mom just left us there! We were surrounded by donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, and VERY feisty llamas. It's lucky we made it out alive.

We hung out with a few camels. Dru's mom got slobbered on by one of them - yuck!

 Gates did a lot of strolling at this farm too, but also hung out on the tractor with my mom and watched us play.

 How fun are these go-cart bikes!?!? It steered like a car, pedaled like a bike, but had four wheels. So cool!

And just because I love him, here's a recent close-up of my awesome little brother...enjoy!