Our (Somewhat Rushed) Fall Break 2015

Our Fall Break was a little longer than usual this year. Strangely enough, it ended up feeling shorter at the same time. We missed the last day of school before Fall Break to go watch Wicked in Phoenix; not long after that, we headed south of the border for a camping trip in Rocky Point. We arrived home from that adventure on Tuesday, October 6th. Fall Break still had several days left, right? No sweat!

However, those days flew by; there was less time to get done our "essential tasks" than usual, due to our being out of town so much in the early part of the break. Before we knew it, Fall Break was over. We had one more crazy weekend of fun, and then it was back to school...and work...and seminary...and volunteer work...and all that other stuff. I barely had time to get our camping laundry done before it was back to the daily grind!

And yet, somehow our family managed to fit in a little more partying before heading back to reality. Here are some of the highlights:

On Friday, October 9th, our family went out to lunch at Tucson Meet Yourself, the city's cultural festival that is celebrated downtown every fall. This has become an annual family event for us; visiting is super easy because we can park the car in Nathan's office building, then all walk over together. This year was the first time Grandma Barrett came along for the fun, and we were glad to have her!

As in years past, we liked to travel from booth to booth to sample a large variety of cuisines. Here are the foods (most of these we shared with one another):

We started with a bunch of egg rolls and a chicken satay from one of the Thai food booths.

 

No trip to Tucson Meet Yourself would be complete without the girls trying these steamed BBQ pork buns. They are their all-time favorite snack at this event. Nathan and I enjoy the buns; Sandy tried one and didn't much care for it; but the girls' affection for these cute little treats only seems to grow every year.

I convinced everyone to try some Russian blini this year! They are very similar to French crepes, but perhaps a little heavier. We tried two blini...one was stuffed with cream and strawberry jam, the other with chicken, mushrooms and cheese. Both were tasty.

 

At the Polish booth, we tried out several pirogis, as well as some potato pancakes with applesauce.

 

We must have been in an eastern European mood this year! This plate came courtesy of the Swedish booth; it contained several meatballs, lingonberry sauce, pickled cucumbers, pickled cabbage, and rye bread.

Everybody tried out a meatball, and I devoured the rest. Nobody loves pickled food more than me, it seems! Also, nobody else wanted rye bread either. Oh well, I was grateful to have it.

 

The last food item on the list was this Turkish meat pie. It was really delicious, but by now I was pretty full, so I only had one bite.

 

We washed all our food down with several aguas frescas. We got a few watermelon-flavored drinks; in the picture is a mango drink and a glass of horchata (a rice/cinnamon/milk concoction that is really very tasty and refreshing).

It was so fun to have Grandma Barrett (aka Sandy) come with us this year. It was fun to show off the festival to a first-time visitor, and it made choosing our food a more interesting experience as well. Hopefully we can do it all together next year!

After stuffing ourselves silly, Nathan took the afternoon off and we headed for home. But our weekend wasn't done yet; Buckelew Farms was waiting for us the following morning!

Going to the pumpkin patch was a decision we made at almost the last minute. We had talked about it in an abstract sense way back in September. However, as October approached, and as we were calendaring one night just after arriving home from Rocky Point, we realized that the upcoming Saturday (October 10th) was the only Saturday of the month that wasn't already booked solid. We had no choice but to head to the pumpkin patch that very weekend. I briefly considered going to the large pumpkin patch/fall festival in Marana, since I'd heard so many good things about it. As it turned out, though, Nathan had several 50% off coupons for Buckelew Farms...so that made up our minds for us. The Marana festival would have to wait another year!

 

We always have fun taking the kids to a pumpkin patch; however, sometimes we don't know which kids are going on field trips to pumpkin patches in school, and which kids aren't. As it turned out, Celeste was the only one of our kids to visit a pumpkin patch this season, so we feel retroactively justified in going. Also, when we arrived at Buckelew, it was nice to see that they'd been adding more activities for kids at the farm. It's nice to see them providing additional things to do; they've been slowly stepping up their game over the last several years (they probably have to, what with the Marana festival impinging on their turf).

Buckelew also has a haunted corn maze on their farm; I imagine most of their fall profits come from that attraction, and not the half-hearted carnival rides they are setting up. Of course, my scare-loving daughters wanted to stick around and try out the Terror In The Corn that night, and of course, Daddy and I shot them down. This is as close as they got to the Terror:

We did get to try out their daytime corn maze, though!

 It wasn't too large, but it was a nice shady walk on a hot afternoon. We may have accidentally taken a wrong turn and gotten out of the maze prematurely, but at least we didn't damage anything. Overall, though, I much preferred Apple Annie's corn mazes that we visited a couple of years ago.

The pumpkin patch, however, did not disappoint...there was a good selection of large, healthy pumpkins on hand. It's nice that the girls are getting old enough that they can pick and carry their own pumpkins with greater ease than in years past. Celeste ended up being unusually choosy this year, however...she took a really long time deciding just which pumpkin was "the one" meant for her. She took so long, in fact, that the rest of the family (save myself) climbed back on the tractor and headed back to the farm without her!

At long last, however, she found a pumpkin that satisfied her.

After paying for our pumpkins, we took a little time to goof off and check out some of the other attractions at the farm. They had their "big chair" and their wooden "photo-op" mock-ups, as in years past...

 

 

...but this year, they farm management had added other things, like a petting zoo, a small pedal-cart track, a pumpkin-painting station, a zombie-themed paintball game, a rubber ducky race track (via some repurposed drainage pipes) and a few inflatable slides.

Buckelew Farms may not be as close to town (or as elaborate) as the Marana farm; however, it still makes for an enjoyable afternoon out. We are very happy with the pumpkins we bought there; we know they are going to make excellent jack o'lanterns! And with that, our bustling busy Fall Break came to an end. We hoped we could survive the rest of the month!