Harvest Festival - Where Carnival Rides Become Fun!

Once again the girls in the family got together to celebrate Fall by visiting Country Mercantile's Harvest Festival. Since this is our third year attending we knew the order of 'fun' operations. Our first stop was to get the Fall themed photo op. Katie surprised us all by joining in on the fun and getting us four kids/grandkids together for a photo for Mom. It was a blink-and-they're-gone moment but we did successfully get some portion of all of our faces in the designated cutouts. Then it was on to the "How Tall This Fall?" board to see how tall the girls were this year.

I'm barely in position, Haylee is in the process of sticking our her tongue, Abby has no clue where to look, and Katie is actually smiling in a picture. It's a picture miracle!

 

Comparing the girl's height to each other.

And Abby is 3 and a quarter feet...ish.

Haylee was all a-twitter about riding the Dragon Roller Coaster so she ran off in that direction while Abby and I headed towards a more Abby level of fun - the inflated obstacle course. We tried the roller coaster last year and it was a pretty big fail, and the attitude hadn't changed this summer at the Benton-Franklin Fair, so I figured that it'd be another fail this year and wouldn't even attempt it. I think I was right but maybe next year the roller coaster will have appeal. After Haylee finished her ride she saw Abby exiting the obstacle course and decided she wanted to have a turn as well. So Haylee and Abby went through together. It's super sweet to see how Haylee helps Abby and watches out for her. You can definitely tell they love each other.

Climbing the ladder to the big slide near the end of the course.

Getting ready to slide down together.

Wheeee!

Next it was Abby's turn to pick a ride and she decided to take a ride on the horsies. :-) Haylee took a little bit of convincing (she's getting to be such a "big girl") but thoroughly enjoyed herself once the ride started. Katie and I had fun trying to get the girls to look at Mom for her to take a picture.

If you look closely you'll see three sets of heads but four sets of feet!

Haylee decided she wanted to see the petting zoo next so we began to make our way to the other side of the field where the petting zoo, hay tower, and hay bale maze were. I was actually impressed with the animals they had on display. Two pigs, two goats, a couple of bunnies, a calf, and a rooster. Not the largest grouping of animals but they were all pretty friendly and interactive with us.

Abby shows Haylee how to pet the bunny.

After the petting zoo the hay tower called. Every year I'm amazed at how tall this tower actually is. I was thinking that Abby and Haylee might be able to go up by themselves but after they'd ascended a few bales high I got nervous and quickly followed. Haylee does a good job keeping track of Abby, but I know Abby can run off lickity-split and I'm a worry wart. :-) In no time flat we'd made it to the top, run through the tunnel near the top of the tower, and were working our way back down as Abby had spotted the hay bale maze and was wanting to run through it.

Abby and Haylee are climbing on their own and I'm near the bottom happily taking pictures.

At this point I've abandoned all pretense of staying on the ground and am climbing the tower with the girls. Look at how awesome Haylee is doing in making sure Abby safely climbs up.

This photo just cracked me up. Both girls are making silly funny faces and you can tell are just having a ball of a time.

We're at the top!!!

Working together to get back down to the ground.

The maze was a hoot. Last year Abby wandered around a turn or two and then asked to be picked up and carried around the maze. This year she literally ran her way around (and around and around as she got stuck in one circle loop as she refused to turn left to get out of it) and just had so much fun burning off energy. Then, when the maze became old and she wanted out, she just climbed up over the wall to get closer to the entrance. Haylee had a heck of a time as she (Haylee) kept wanting to do the maze properly but thought we adults were crazy when we told her it was okay to just leave Abby behind (and Haylee refused) since Abby was doing her own thing. 

The girls started off the maze together.

Then Abby found a circle that shall not be gotten out of and Haylee continued on. 

However, Haylee did NOT like it when Abby started climbing the maze walls and walking along them as Haylee thought Abby would get hurt. So Haylee raced over to meet up with Abby.

 

At first I thought that Haylee was getting a little annoyed at Abby and her "not going through the maze properly decisions" and there might be a little cousin fight going down.

But Haylee demonstrated her absolute love for Abby by joining in on the game of going through the maze by climbing over the walls. I just love this picture. Abby has jumped into Haylee's arms and Haylee is holding so tight onto Abby so they don't fall. It's perfect trust and love. It just makes my heart smile.

At this time the adults decided it was time for the hayride out to the pumpkin patch as the sun was setting and who knew how long picking out pumpkins was going to take. Thank goodness we did get an early start because the tractor that was pulling the hay trailer kept giving the driver fits and what should have been an easy three minute ride turned into almost fifteen. But to make up for it he took us deep into pumpkin picking territory where the pumpkins hadn't been completely picked over yet so there were some really good ones.

I LOVE Haylee's expression. It's totally her Mom's "why are you taking my picture?" expression with total sass and attitude. Notice how Katie is desperately leaning to one side to avoid her picture being taken. :-) Yep, Haylee is her Mother's child.

In this one Haylee has her arms securely around Abby as each time the tractor tried to start up again it would backfire and the hold trailer would jerk. Abby almost fell over with one of the jerks so Haylee made sure that didn't happen again.

Pumpkins as far as the eye can see! This year Abby picked out a really great pumpkin without too much Mom interference. Last year she kept wanting to take home the pumpkins that were half-rotted but this year she pointed those out as "yucky" ones and quickly moved on to the nicer looking pumpkins. The pumpkin that she's holding is one that she picked completely by herself. I hadn't even seen it by the time she'd picked it up and declared "my punkin".

A Katie sighting! :-) Heading back in from the pumpkin patch to pay for our pumpkins. 

Katie was sweet and decided to take the girl's pumpkins back to the car for me so I took the girls for a ride on the train. Grandma took a quick picture with the girls then decided to hunt up some caramel apples for an after festival snack for us.

Grandma with her girls.

Abby LOVES trains right now so was super excited for the ride, Haylee enjoyed going through the corn maze portion of the train ride, and I enjoyed listening to the girls talk to each other as they pointed out different sights they were seeing. Funny of the evening was that the girls got in a seat where the seatbelt was super each to get on and almost too easy to get off. I got into a seat that was a little difficult getting the seatbelt on and required the attendant to come over and unbuckle me as I didn't have the strength. I had to chuckle when I thought of the adult being the extra secured one and the little girls being loosey-goosey with safety. :-)

We ended the festival with the best ride of all (in everyone's opinion)! I thought that Abby would like the airplane as she also really digs airplanes right now, too. I was happy when Haylee ran up (Abby had just come from a second ride on the carousel while Haylee was doing the obstacle course) and wanted to join Abby on the ride. Mostly because I figured Abby would be more inclined to have fun than be scared if Haylee was with her. I showed the girls how to move the joystick to go up and down and the ride was off. Mom and I were trying to take some pictures but they were so high in the air we were having trouble so Mom told Haylee to lower the airplane. Haylee replied that Abby wouldn't let her and kept telling her no when she tried to bring the plane lower. I think we found another winner of a carnival ride!

Abby and Haylee enjoying a "big kid" carnival ride.

Unfortunately we were all out of ride tickets (I actually had to run to the ticket booth and purchase more tickets for Haylee to ride the ride as she ran into the airplane before I could mention otherwise. I asked the attendant if it would be okay for me to bring him tickets after the ride and he was gracious enough to let me.) so we couldn't have a repeat of the fun ride. Plus, it was almost 7pm and the girls still hadn't had dinner. We decided that we'd already spent a chunk of change so we drove back to McDonald's for some much enjoyed Happy Meals. The girls had a great time burning off more energy as they raced around the indoor playground and we adults enjoyed a chance to sit down and chat. I think this was the best year of all three. The girls were both of an age that they could do a lot of the same activities. They were also old enough to understand waiting our turn and doing something because someone else really wanted to. I honestly don't think it will be that long before we add the big corn maze to our list of "must" activities. Until next year!