Family fun at Bloomsbury Farm

Sit back, you're in for a long blog entry!

Our discoveries of new parts of Iowa continued on Saturday when we decided last minute to go to this place called Bloomsbury Farm (http://www.bloomsburyfarm.com/). We'd heard of it and knew there were corn mazes (get it - maize?), but never went. It was less than an hour away so what the hay (get it - hay?).

Ok, enough of that. We went venturing towards Atkins, IA, got on some country gravel roads, got to Bloomsbury farm a little past noon and were pleasantly surprised. There are so many great things for kids to do. Peter and Natalie were the perfect age for everything!

We started off with feeding some farm animals. It all sounded pretty easy and innocent, but when it came time for me to show the kids how to feed the goats...well, you can watch for yourself!

Fortunately, my fear did not get passed onto our kids, especially not Natalie. For the girl who often says, "I don't want to", Natalie jumped at the opportunity to feed the goats and LOVED it! She had no fear at all, which scared me a little! Nothing is scarier for a mother to watch her little girl stick out her hands with food towards an animal that's more than 4 times her size, with an eager mouth and teeth of unknown size. The fear that her fingers would get bit by those teeth had crossed my mind. As it turned out the goats were very gentle and kept their teeth to themselves. Natalie loved their ticklish mouths eating from her hands and just kept wanting to feed them.

While Natalie fed the goats, Peter had his own fun at the duck races. He worked really hard and stayed persistent to get that water pumped out to get the ducks going but was having fun! He sounds like his daddy!

Next, we watched cute little pigs in a race then hopped aboard a tractor ride around the corn fields. The kids had lots of fun on the bumpy ride. I would have tried to take some pictures but I felt the need to hold on both Peter and Natalie so they would bump off the ride!

They were cute little piggies!

She seems so tiny next to this tractor!

Our 'chariot' awaits! This is so "Iowa" to me. I love it!

After the tractor ride around and through the fields, we discovered the Corn Box. It was kind of like a giant sandbox except it had corn kernels instead of sand. This stop was a huge hit for both the kids. Peter jumped right in and was having the time of his life. Natalie started off with her usual "I don't want to!" and was having a hard time moving around as she sunk into the corn like it was quicksand. With a little help, she ended up having a blast, too. I'm guilty of hopping in myself just because I needed to know what it felt like to stand in about 2 feet of corn kernels. It felt cool and funny. Every Iowan should have a corn box in their backyard!

Bed of corn is fun to roll in.

Corn also makes a cool background for pictures!

And corn is apparently fun to throw (see Peter) and gets stuck in your toes (see Nata)!

Ain't it the truth?

Next, the kids enjoyed going down this huge slide made of out of big industrial piping of some sort. Peter went down with no hesitation (what a big boy he's become). Natalie had a little hesitation and, again, said "I don't want to". With a little help from Daddy she made it down the slide and, again, loved it.

Then we headed over to the giant "pillow" bouncy. It was so big - the picture below only shows about 1/4 of the actual size of this thing. Yet another hit with the kids. They looked so funny running across it, like trapeze artists walking across the net. Sam discovered another funny thing, especially with Natalie. If he bounced just a little on one end while she was on the other, he could make her airborne. Although it was hilarous to see, I was also VERY relieved they were the only kids on it at the time. She could have been catapulted into the corn fields!

Natalie got some air in her hair!



Right next to the pillow was the kids tractor ride.

Peter chose to be the caboose!


Spending most of the time asleep in the baby Bjorn, Elaine woke up long enough to get a picture with her 'new scarecrow family'.

Next was some big boy fun for Sam. He just couldn't resist being a little boy again and taking a this dirt bike/go cart for a spin. He had a lot of fun and surely would have gone around many more times if I wasn't having a hard time keeping Peter off the track.

Peter SO WANTED to be out there with Daddy but his legs weren't long enough. More than two days later, Peter still talks about how he is sad that he "couldn't ride the 7-year old bike". I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked at this picture that I realized he was on the #7 cart!

We FINALLY made it to the big event - the corn maze. I must say, we were pretty brave to go into a maze made in 9-ft tall corn fields with 3 youngs kids. Could you imagine the panic attack if we lost one? Luckily, we stayed together through the course,...

found a family photo op,...

even had Peter be "the leader" with the map in hand,...

and made it out again!

Before we left, Peter took his last chance to feed some goats. He was a bit more timid about it than Natalie, but he enjoyed it just the same.

I'm such a sucker for these cut outs for photos - it must the be Asian in me. I, as our main photographer, never got one myself as the day had gotten late and the kids were losing steam. Sam did ham it up for this last one, which I appreciated!

Just shows you how much we ALL had a great time!