Yes Chloe, There is a Pumpkin Patch

Remember Chloe's struggle with fireworks? This year, the concept of "The Pumpkin Patch" started to enter the mythical world of fireworks for Chloe. It started out with a late breaking plan for family home evening. Bracken came home one Monday night with the suggestion that we go to the pumpkin patch. I thought that sounded like a great idea. I looked online and visited the website of what looked like a really cute and fun pumpkin patch that was open in the evenings. So we pumped the kids full of excitement, loaded up the car, and drove to an empty lot. No pumpkin patch to be seen. We drove up and down and all around Roseville, but were unable to locate a pumpkin patch. We then went to the Home Depot, got free balloons, and purchased pumpkins for $2.99. Which is where we probably would have bought them anyway because though I wanted the pumpkin patch experience for my kids, I'm not interested in paying pumpkin patch prices for my large squashes. Especially since I'm still bitter that my pumpkins didn't grow this year. But I digress. Upon arriving home, I rechecked the internet to discover that the pumpkin patch we'd attempted to visit had shut down the previous year because of the damage done by copper thieves.

A week or so later, we decided to attempt a visit to a different pumpkin patch. There's one on a main road near our house that we drive past all year long, but have never been to. We loaded everyone up, pumped full of excitement once again, and drove to the pumpkin patch. Chloe was bouncing in her seat. As we approached the entrance, traffic started slowing. We thought maybe it was just a busy night, but then we saw the flashing lights. There was some sort of traffic accident right in front of the entrance, and the patch was closed for the night.

So we kept on driving while trying to think of some way to save the evening. Chloe was starting to ask questions we couldn't answer, like "Is there really a pumpkin patch?" and "How can I know the pumpkin patch is true?" We scrambled, and I remembered I had seen signs for another pumpkin patch south of us, and we decided to head that way. And saw this.
Initially, we saw the flashing lights, and started to sink into the depths of pumpkin patch denial, but we were relieved when the lights moved away from the direction we were headed. We followed the signs to Pumpkin Hill, and were rewarded for our perseverance. We found a petting zoo, hay ride, scarecrow contest, multiple photo cut outs . . .

(One word--Impish)

Bounce houses . . .
Bounce cages . . .
A hay pyramid . . .
And lots of fall produce.
Oh, and a cute dad with crazy eyes.
But why does Chloe look so sad? Maybe because there were still no fireworks.