Pumpkin Patch with MOPS

Monday, my MOPS group went to the pumpkin patch held at this really cute historic mansion. The inside of the mansion is completely restored to resemble the 1800's, as is the non-working outhouse outside. They have a vegetable garden, goats, rabbits and chickens, as well as a working water pump. There are also orange groves, which when in season you can go and pick oranges for a fee. This place was super cute and I hope to go back with the entire family, as Wayne was at work and Kya in school.


I wish I had thought to take a picture of the entire house instead of just the porch, because it was super cute. This is the kind of porch I would like to have. Maybe I can convince Wayne to put in white wood railings and take down our rod-iron ones and paint our house green!
A group shot of all the kids.

We got to go on a hayride (minus the hay!) pulled by a tractor thru the orange groves. As you can see by the "green" oranges, they are not yet ripe.

Then each kid got to pick out their own pumpkin to decorate later.

Seth tried to get away with two!

All the kids enjoyed playing on this little horse and saddle.

But their favorite was this tractor. What a great group of kids!

Seth's decorated pumpkin. He was funny, because although he did the work himself, he was a little disgusted by the glue dripping onto his fingers.

This is Elsie's pumpkin. All girly in pink!

Elsie loved this little rabbit and he really liked her too. He would follow her all around the glass cage just checking her out and even popped up a time or two.. He actually "kissed" Seth on his forehead, which he thought was pretty neat.

Next door to the pumpkin patch was this little playground. We stayed there for a little while before heading out for some lunch. Because the kids are used to swinging in the baby swings and I wouldn't push them high on these, they decided to fly on their tummy's them instead.

Yucca Valley - Part 1 & 2

We spent October 10th and October 17 in Yucca Valley, CA. Yucca Valley is basically in the middle of no where, filled with a bunch of retired folks. They are about 30 minutes from Palm Springs and another 30 minutes below 29 Palms, which is where a Marine Base is located. I was actually very surprised that over 25,000 people lived in this community, because to be honest, I was thinking it would be more like 5,000.
This is the main drag. As you can see, there isn't really much. We went there on the 10th because Southland was asked to play with 4 other bands to help promote a new church, New Beginnings Church. They set up a stage in the Sears parking lot and performed from 11am to 5pm.

Southland performing up on stage.
Elsie and her Daddy

Our kids were real troopers, as there wasn't much for them to do. Kya and Seth both made their hand prints and played a couple of games.

Luckily, next door in the Applebee's parking lot (I guess it is common practice to hold events in parking lots!), the YMCA was having a fundraiser. Here the kids got to play in a bounce house and go down this slide 1,000 times. lol

Elsie even had her picture drawn by this clown. I really should take a picture of it and post it. It is of her sucking her thumb, since she wouldn't take it out.

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Then on the 17th, we came back for Southland to perform at First Southern Baptist Church of Yucca Valley's harvest festival. I thought the backdrop for the guys was awesome. Mountains and the dessert landscape.

Here, they were giving out FREE hot dogs, baked beans, chips, drinks, ice cream and ice slushies. Plus, they had lots of fun things for the kids. Again, there was a bounce house, that got so filled with kids that it almost fell over backwards! Scared Kya, but not bad enough for her to stay out of it.

Seth enjoyed the scenery while sitting on this stump. Check out his fake smile. I crack up at how he makes his upper lip curl under.

He also enjoyed a game of ring toss.

and a golf type of game.

Kya wasn't into the games too much. She did color a picture, but she would much rather eat her ice slushie and then use the empty cup and spoon to play in the dirt.

She made quite a mess of her face. Looks like a clown!

Elsie wanted to play with everything, but she especially wanted to play soccer with the big boys. Here she is running after the ball and you will notice that she never let go of her horse!

Once she got to the ball, instead of kicking it, she would pick it up and carry it back to the boys. Luckily they were good sports about it.

After the boys were done playing, this sweet young boy stayed back to play some with Elsie and Seth. I am thinking I may have a future soccer player on my hands.

Of course, they were both playing in their boots!

Nice pose and shot Seth!

Even though I could never live here myself, I have to admit that it is beautiful. Especially once the sun starts to go down and things cool off some.