It's Fall Y'all

Autumn has fallen and all the local farms are gearing up for their Fall Festivals.  My husband and I enjoy taking Frankie to these little festivals. She loves the rides, corn cribs and bouncy houses. If there are farm animals to see or feed, she is always anxious to do that most of all. Some of them have a corn maze, but Frankie was not interested in that this year. In fact, she does not really enjoy large crowds, so we choose to visit this festival early in the month. This year we chose Sykes Family Farms – 9 acres of cornfusion and fun! (sycofarms.com) for our family adventure. Only one hour drive from Jacksonville, making it convenient for a quick morning trip. They offered hayrides, a barrel train pulled behind a tractor, corn maze and corn crib in addition, a few bouncy pads. There were plenty of activities for the littles to enjoy. Frankie tried the cow milking station, not a real cow and duck races, not with real ducks. Because the animals were not real, it didn’t seem to amuse her for long. She was able to see real cows, goats and a turkey, but she could not pet or feed them as she had in the past at the Celestial Farms Fall Festival. Understandably, she was disappointed and sadly Celestial Farms has since closed.

She spent most of the time playing in the corn crib. She also rode the barrel train around the corn maze a few times. The bouncy pads got a little crowned for her, so she did not spend much time jumping on those. We went to the bubble barn to make lots of huge bubbles, she chased them and popped them, but that didn’t last long either. Honestly, I think her favorite part was the kettle corn, she is a foodie, just like her parents. She was not interested in getting her face painted or painting pumpkins. I assume that is because we paint pumpkins at our house and the face paint itches when it dries. Still, we enjoyed our visit and it did help us get into the fall spirit. We don't have very cool falls living in Florida, therefore it is hard to get into the spirit. The leaves here don't really change colors like they do just North of us, another reason it still feels like
Summer in October.

Lucky for us, plenty of houses at the beaches are decorated elaborately for Halloween. One of our favorite fall activities is to ride bikes around to check out all the Halloween decorations. That evening after we got back from the farm, we took our bikes out for a ride to see them all. As a treat for Frankie to make the ride more enjoyable, we stopped for ice cream at Cookies and Creme Jax Beach - Ice Cream, Cookie, Cookie Delivery with house made ice-cream and cookie sandwich. Frankie gobbled on the chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice-cream rolled in sprinkles. Shayne and I shared the chocolate brownie cookie with salted caramel ice-cream, both were rich and delicious, more than enough to share. It was the perfect place to stop and give Frankie a break from the bike ride. Not only does she love the cool treat, but she also enjoys all the games and kid activities that they offer to kids to play with in front of the store. As she played the giant connect four with another little girl, Shayne and I sat back and enjoyed the sunset. Soon it was time to get back on our bikes and ride home, passing the festive houses before dark. It was a wonderful evening to conclude our fun filled day of fall adventures.

That night while I was lying in bed with Frankie, we talked about our day. Frankie exclaimed that she really enjoyed the farm, but she was sad that she could not feed the animals. I explained to her that those were working animals, and they have a job on the farm. I told her that the animals we used to visit at Celestial Farms were rescue animals that needed to be loved and some of them were old and didn't work anymore.  Therefore, we could feed them and touch them without worrying about disrupting their jobs. She understood the reason and asked if we could try to find some other farm that we could visit, so she could feed the animals. I told her I would do some research and find a new farm to frequent as we did with Celestial farms. Frankie was lying there so quietly, I thought she was asleep, when all of a sudden, she said "mommy, wouldn't it be cool if all the corn in the corn crib was popcorn?" to which I responded, "yes, it would be cool, and it would probably cover the entire farm. She giggled and said, "I bet those working animals would love that for a snack!"