Pumpkin Princess Pageant

Back at the beginning of October Maddy saw a sign with a little girl in a tiara holding a pumpkin. She asked me what it was and I read that it was the Pumpkin Princess Pageant.

She said she wanted to be in it. 

It is held at Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point each year. The participant gets in free so I thought that would work out great. It was free to sign up so I quickly signed up Maddy.

When we picked up Abi from school and Maddy told her about it, she decided she wanted to be in it too.

Here they are before the pageant started..

The host was great with the kids.

Maddy was about 8th in line so she was up pretty quickly.

She was really worried about a part of the stage that moved when you stepped on it so she was much quieter than normal but still earned a big laugh from the audience.

Abi was pretty nervous so I was SO proud of her that she did it. 

If you know her you know how big of a deal it is that she got up on that stage in front of a TON of people she had never met or seen before and answered questions.

Like I said, this lady was so great with the kids. At one point she just put her arm around Abi and stayed like that for the rest of the time to help her.

After all of the contestants had been interviewed they called all of the girls back onto the stage to announce the winners.

Maddy didn't want to go back up at first but one of the ladies took her up there with her.

They were taking group photos with funny faces and I zoomed in on Maddy.

Every girl got a wand, a cupcake, and a free pumpkin so along with getting in free that made it really fun for them.

We didn't have a ton of time to do everything because we needed to be up in Park City for a Van Wagenen family thing soon but we did have time to do the big corn maze.

Doug said he thought it was fun for about five minutes and then the rest of the time was just trying to get out. I think we all felt a little bit that way because it took us SO long to get through.

Victory Bridge!

The girls with their free pumpkins...

We went to lunch right after and then Maddy crashed in the car on the way up the canyon.

Snowbird

Abi is doing a fun thing with Doug's mom called Miss Manners.

Every other Monday they get together to learn. 

So, a few weeks ago after Abi's first Miss Manners activitiy, I took advantage of already being up in Sandy to drive up the canyon to check out the fall colors. 

I was going to turn around after a few minutes but Abi asked if we could please go all the way up to Snowbird.

It is one of her favorite places after spending some time there this past summer riding the tram and hiking.

So, we got there and watched some ducks and then decided to go on this bridge I had never been on before. I thought it probably just looped around the pond. 

It was pretty cold... but my girls are like me and tend to not notice that too much.

So they had some fun playing in the snow..

on the bridge...

So we got across the bridge and around a corner and found a hidden park! We were so excited!!

I had no idea this was here but it is a fantastic park.

The girls had so much fun playing there.

I think it is probably pretty hard to find a park with a prettier backdrop..

We love fall! and mountains!

Apple Picking

We knew we wanted to go apple picking this fall but I wasn't sure where we could go.

I called so many orchards and all of them said they couldn't let people pick their own apples.

Finally Doug's parents mentioned Farnsworth Farms in Sandy.

I had actually called them but there wasn't an answer any of the times I had called. 

I decided to call again and this time the message machine came on and gave their hours for apple picking!

We were so excited.

The guy working in the "barn" gave us bags and told us they would be priced based on weight.

We headed out to pick...

It was an interesting experience. We got a trillion pokey things in our shoes because the ground was just weeds and the apples were really small... and hard to find good ones.

But we made the most of it and enjoyed being able to pick our own apples no matter the circumstances.

They had a little playground by the peach trees. You had to cross the field of death weeds but we did it.

Our mix of apples and peaches...

my cute mom playing in the airplane with Abi...

As we were walking back to pay, the Oscar Meyer weiner mobile came rolling in.

They let the kids go in it.

That was a really fun, unexpected treat. 

After we were done we met the rest of my family at Chili's for lunch. So fun!