Gilcrease Orchard 2017

Fall has officially made it's way to Vegas with some cooler temperatures, and what better way to really get into the fall spirit than to visit our favorite spot for pumpkin picking... Gilcrease Orchard!  This is my absolute favorite tradition for fall, and I love that the kids are old enough to fully enjoy it, too!

We started out the morning early, and it was still really cool in the 60s which made for perfect fall weather!  Acelyn eyed everything closely in the beginning while she took a ride in the wagon, and wasn't quite sure about all the people around and what exactly was going on, at first.  

Once she saw "PUH-INS!" in the photo op area, she was hooked.  Nolan sat on every one asking for his picture to be taken, and Acelyn just kept touching and inspecting each one.  Since we weren't quite to the pumpkin patch yet, we made a pit stop in the apple trees, where Acelyn loved running through the grass and Nolan was focused on finding apples in the trees (except that they were all picked off already!)

Acelyn found a lone pumpkin that someone must have ditched, and she instantly claimed it as her own.  She carried this thing around forever and instantly knew this was her pumpkin for the day, so of course that's the one she got to take home!  

Once we made our way to the pumpkin patch, we headed down to the very end to try to escape the crowds.  This place gets busier through each weekend in October, and this year was no exception.  Even though there were a lot of people, it never felt too crowded in the patch, and luckily there were still a ton of pumpkins left to choose from.

Nolan loved running through the dirt, and found his pumpkin right off the bat.  He chose a great big round, deep orange one with the perfect stem.  Acelyn wanted to pick them up, but wasn't quite strong enough, so she settled for hugging them, instead.  We tried to get some pictures of the two of them to compare to last years, but there was no way they were going to sit still enough, let alone look at the camera... so that was a fail!

We continued on our pumpkin search, where Daddy found his giant, gross bumpy one and Grandma helped me find my flat, cinderella pumpkin, and picked a few extras up along the way.  Acelyn helped Daddy push the wagon some, and when she wasn't busy being a big helper, her and Nolan were off running through the dirt path.  

Finally on our walk back, she decided she would catch a ride with all of the pumpkins, and while Daddy waited in line to checkout, we took a walk through more apple trees.  Acelyn collected the ones from the ground and carried some around until we reached the chicken coop.

The kids looooooved the "cluck clucks", as Acelyn would call them, and surprisingly, this was the first time we had visited the chicken coop at Gilcrease!  We didn't know it existed until last year, so we made it a point to be something to stop by on our visit back.  Acelyn could have spent hours watching the chickens, and giggled and screamed "CLUCK CLUCKS!" or "BAK BAK!" the whole time.  

Next up was the hay bale maze, where the kids ran through tunnel tubes and loved finding their way through the maze.  Nolan asked to go again and again, but we finally convinced him to move on once he saw the tractor ride.  We took a spin around the whole property, and came back to take a few pictures and sadly, skip out on donuts this year (I KNOW!).  The line was the longest we had ever seen it in previous years, and we watched some people to see how far they moved while we were on the tractor... and they barely moved an inch!  So, we sadly had to pass... and just dream of how good they tasted based on how amazing they smelled!

Gilcrease was another success this year, and one tradition I absolutely look forward to each October.  I'm so glad I'm able to spend times like these with the people I love, and I hope that the kids will grow up loving this tradition just as much!