Oil Ranch and Zoo Boo

Fear not, readers, I haven't been a complete slacker despite my lack of blog posts.  This month has actually been pretty eventful for us, and the only reason I haven't been posting much is because it took me a good two weeks to recover from the trauma that consisted of driving 12 hours by myself with two kids and almost spinning off the road at midnight in Arkansas.  But I'm sort of back in action, so here are a couple of updates on what we've been doing.

 

First off, we went to the Oil Ranch with my ward's playgroup.  I'm really grateful that it was all planned for me and we got a group rate, because I honestly don't think paying $30 to get into that place would have been worth it. The kids ended up having fun, but it was enough headache for me that I probably wouldn't go again. Instead of having an actual pumpkin patch, they had small pumpkins set out on the grass for the kids to take-- you know, the kind they use for pies that you can buy at HEB for $2.  But other highlights included pony rides, which Violet loved but Charlie wouldn't go near to save his life:

 A romp in a big stack of hay:

 Also, a petting zoo, but Violet is afraid of petting zoos ever since the deer at the rodeo ate her skirt, so we didn't go in that.  But the kids did like looking at the bunnies in their cage.

A tractor ride to go feed some cows, which should have been named the screaming tractor ride of terror, because the cows stick their heads in the wagon and lick anyone in sight, and their tongues are long enough to wrap entirely around Charlie's wrist (although even with a cow's tongue wrapped around his wrist, Charlie didn't get the memo that you're supposed to let go of the food).  The kids were fine after they figured out that dropping the food on the floor of the wagon and letting the cows eat it from there was a much better idea.

 After that, it was hot and Charlie started getting really grumpy and I was about to call it a day and make the hour-long trip home even though we had only been there for an hour.  I finally made a last-ditch effort to make him happy and took a little train ride, which was essentially the same as the tractor ride except that it didn't involve invasive cows and didn't have a 30-minute wait in the hot sun to get on it. So, it was exponentially better. 

The last thing we did there was nothing short of a miracle, and may have been the only thing all day that changed my view of this trip from "totally not worth it" to "pretty fun."  We found an empty bouncy house. We had tried bouncy houses before but they were full of school kids (and to be honest, pretty bratty ones) and Charlie left screaming every time.  But this one, oh, just look at his face. Have you ever seen him so happy?

 The next eventful we went to was Zoo Boo.  Basically, they have trick-or-treating at our zoo.  Awesome, isn't it?  And although it was just as expensive, it wasn't a two-hour round trip and Charlie never complained, so in my opinion it was more than worth it.  There were a few booths scattered around the zoo where you could get candy, play games, and even pick out and decorate pumpkins.

And can I just talk about Charlie's costume for a minute? He was originally going to be Pasquale (the chameleon) from Tangled, but I had nowhere near enough energy to make it.  So I pulled out Violet's old chicken costume and stuck it on him.  When we first put it on him, he had just woken up and was a little confused. But when he walked up to the mirror, he gasped, started clapping, and yelled, "Chicken!  Bok bok!"  I still can't get over how cute (and funny) he looked in it.  I just. can't. handle. it.

 And of course, Violet was a very pretty (and rather convincing) Rapunzel.