Fun in Spades at Stade's

There is hardly time to even do anything blog worthy lately, let alone time to blog about it. We have been swamped up to our eyeballs since September. I think my plate is now officially full but I have thought that before and then had to figure out how to smoosh the side dishes in to the main dish to make room for one more thing so who knows?

Two weekends ago we finally had a free Saturday, or at least half free. After Seth went to help with an Eagle Scout project in the morning we were excited to spend the rest of the day as a family. One of the Tae Kwon Do moms had told me about a fun pumpkin patch called Stade's in McHenry, IL, about an hour from us. The weather report suggested a 20% chance of rain but we figured that was low enough that we would risk it. The rain started as soon as we got in the car and by the time we got there it was a downpour and the whole place was mudville. Since we had driven all that way, we did run in long enough to grab hot apple cider donuts and then got back on the road. Since we were already so far west, I suggested that we shoot over to Lake Geneva and eat lunch at Sprechers so the day wouldn't feel like a complete loss. About 30 minutes later we pulled in to Sprechers to find that it was closed for renovations. We cracked up! Apparently the stars had aligned against us and family fun was not in the cards.

The kids were good sports about all of our plans falling apart so I promised we would try again the next weekend. We had the next Friday off of school, but IL students did not so I thought we would beat the crowds and go back to the pumpkin patch that day. My friend said that when she went there were thousands of people there and fields full of cars. We had the place entirely to ourselves until after school hours and even then only a few other families showed up. It could have been because we had temps in the 30's and winds at 25 mph?

I haven't had any reason to take the camera out lately so I got excited and took 230 pictures. There were so many things to do at this place and you just paid $8 per person to get in and then you could have unlimited use of everything there. The local pumpkin patch charges $3 to jump on the bouncy pillow for 5 minutes, another $5 for the corn maze, and so on. I thought the flat fee was a great deal and the kids had so much fun. We stayed for 5 hours and could have stayed longer but we could not feel our fingers or noses anymore.

I have narrowed down the pictures as much as I could but when you only post once or twice a month I think you are allowed to use excessive amounts of pictures.

Jump Pillow
 
Silly ride that Alex and Alyssa were too tall for but since no one was there, they said they could ride. Alyssa still opted out.

 
Hill slides




 
Covered corn pits




 
There was a maze inside a string of cattle cars which should have specified that it was for children only because I ended up belly crawling through parts of it.
 
Duck races



 
These horses were bouncy and unstable and basically just hilarious.









 
Barrel train ride


 
All to ourselves
 
The rope maze timed how long you took to punch a series of buttons in the maze.
 
I am a little bit afraid of corn mazes but the attendant assured me that I would not get stuck in there forever so we went for it. Thankfully Alex and Alyssa are directionally gifted and could tell where they were at all times. It all looked the same to me.

 
If you found the answers to 16 different questions in the maze you got a free pumpkin. Here we are finding the answer to #14, our final one. We got 4 free pumpkins.


 
The girls jumped right in to feed the goats.
 
Alex did not want to touch them so he used the food ramp to send food up to the goat bridge.




 
Sorry fellows, we're out of food.



 
Shooting the corn cannons. The blur coming out of Alyssa's cannon is her corn. Chloe gave up after a few shots but Alex and Alyssa managed to hit several targets.



 
We got hot cider and donuts and then sat by the pumpkin cannon...they are supposed to shoot pumpkins every hour on the hour but did not. I am guessing it wasn't crowded enough. 




 
After we hit every exhibit many times, we jumped on the wagon and took a ride out to the pumpkin patch. The ride was included with our admission but pumpkins were $5 a piece, any size.

 
This is just a tiny slice of the patch. It went on forever in all directions. 











By the time we left we were very chilly and very ready to go. Time to get out the hats and gloves, I guess. But, we had so much fun and I was so excited to find a new pumpkin patch to add to the rotation. As we left I saw another pumpkin patch just down the street that boasted the World's Largest Corn Maze so I looked it up when I got home and it looks like fun too, corn maze, zip lines, pig races, giant hamster ball that they strap you in to and roll you down the hill. The kids are still too short/light for some of the attractions there but I am adding it to my list of places to visit in the future as well.

And now we have Trunk or Treat on Friday and for the first time ever I totally forgot. I usually have costumes planned and ordered and organized 2 months early. It is the only thing in my life that I am usually on top of but this year I blew it. We finally went out to costume shop yesterday and came up empty so it looks like we are reusing, recycling and repurposing this year.