Cox Farm 2011

Two Saturday's ago we made our 3rd annual trip to Cox Farm to enjoy fall activities, photo ops, animals, and slides.  This year we went with Aunt Jenny, Uncle Brett, and Brayden.  We had a wonderful day and got some cute pictures.  When we got home I managed to accidentally delete them instead of save them... and I was devastated!  I always say that Cox Farm is the perfect way to spend ONE day a year.  It's a little pricey, and it's definitely more fun for the kids then the adults.  Luckily, my wonderful husband and sister-in-law agreed to go again this Saturday!  I literally wanted to go just to recreate some of the pictures I had lost, but Grammy and Aunt Becky joined us on the second trip, and we ended up doing a few new things and Timmy got braver and tried bigger slides, so I'm glad we ended up going two weekends in a row!

We had never been on the hay ride at the farm before but went straight to it on this visit because the line wasn't nearly as long as we had seen it before.  It was actually the longest hay ride I have ever been on and I was surprised by how elaborate the route was.  We went through corn fields, mud, wooden cut out scenes, the pond(!), saw live animals, and there were even actors along the route.  

The slides have been a big hit every year, but Timmy always takes some convincing to go down them at first, then he loves them.  The first weekend we finally talked him onto the smallest one, but he would not go down anything else.  On our second trip we convinced him to try a second one, and then he was all about the slides.  He even went down a huge one that you sit on burlap bags for, sitting between us.  The whole way up we talked about how we would race down and see who was the fastest, and he was excited, until he got to the top and looked down.  He tried to back out of it, then asked to sit on Tim's lap, and finally sat between us and held hands.  He wanted to do it again as soon as we got to the bottom!

Brayden on the other hand enjoyed the slide a lot the first trip to the farm, and wanted nothing to do with them on our second trip!  When Grammy put him on the slide he managed to stop himself half way down and she had to walk down to get him off of it!  Jenny gave it a try too, but he just wasn't interested.

Both Timmy and Brayden were very interested in the animals, there are goats, pigs, horses, and cows throughout the farm.  The cow was the hit this year, both of them fed the cow and milked it!

Timmy also enjoyed trying a little obstacle course that ended with a rope swing on both visits.  He was excited about it because it was like Survivor, which he enjoys watching with us because of the physical contests that they participate in.  The rope swing was packed the first week so he only tried it once, and he had stood on the knot but hadn't gotten his hands up very high so he fell off almost immediately.  This visit, Tim helped him sit on the knot and hold higher and he was much more successful.

Tyler came along on both trips to the farm as well.  The first time I carried (all 18 pounds of) him around in the Bjorn carrier because it was pretty muddy, but on our second visit we were able to use the stroller.  Giving him stroller rides provided entertainment for all three of the cousins for a while!

We stopped at several of the photo op set ups, Tim and Timmy in the train one is a recreation of one of Timmy's favorite pictures of them, that we took last year.  Poor Tyler was sleeping when we wanted to take our family picture but we got him out of the stroller and in the picture anyways.

On the way out each person gets to select a small pumpkin or gourd to take home.  Timmy was very sure of what he wanted on each trip and enjoyed selecting just the right one.

It turns out that Cox Farm can be the perfect way to spend a few days in the fall!  :)