Muddy Pumpkins

Each grade level has one field trip per year, and this year Gracie's grade went to the pumpkin patch. As always, these trips are scheduled way in advance, and you go, rain or shine on your scheduled day. Unfortunately for us, it had been raining for at least four days when our scheduled day arrived, so we were in for a mud pit of a pumpkin patch. I was really not looking forward to the trip, because last week the girls had been sick with a "flu-like" illness, which they had given to me, and I had managed to parlay into a sinus infection. Since I was only on dose two of the antibiotics for that, tromping through the mud held about as much appeal as visiting Wal-Mart the day before Thanksgiving. Still, the weather hadn't dampened the kids enthusiasm for the trip, so we packed our lunches and away we went.

I was assigned a group of three girls to usher around the pumpkin patch. First the whole group went into a nice dry nursery and got a class on what we would see at the pumpkin patch. We saw lots of pumpkins - orange, green, yellow, blue, Cinderellas, and Turbins, pumpkins with warts and pumpkins without. We also heard about what animals we could see and pet.

I didn't get any shots of the girls picking their pumpkins - the field was under water in places, and I was busy trying not to fall over instead of taking photos! By the time we wrangled the pumpkins back to the barn Gracie was covered in mud, but was happy as a lark. When we got home she said it was "the greatest field trip ever!" so I guess it was a success!

In the meantime, Maggie's grade was having pumpkin day at school - one of the few times the girls activities overlapped. They made pumpkin pie, pumpkin bars and spiced pumpkin seeds. They decorated their pumpkins and sang pumpkin carols - I got there in time to see the decorated pumpkins and hear the carols. Maggie had a fun time for pumpkin day too, although hers was much drier!

Maggie's friend Bailey and their decorated pumpkins. (Maggie decorated her pumpkin as a bird.)