Lemos Farm with Bubby

A few weeks ago Bubby bought a last minute plane ticket to come see Norah for Halloween. She did the same thing last year and although she doesn't approve of Scary Lady In The Tree, we are hoping this becomes an annual tradition.

Bubby flew in on Saturday morning and we picked her up at the airport and immediately drove to Bubby's favorite place-Half Moon Bay. It was raining and very muddy, and so a perfect time to go to Lemos Farm, for the sole reason that I figured it would be the one time it wasn't packed with people. Thankfully, I was right.

BVZ and Norah in the parking lot. We have a rule that she has to be carried in parking lots and it is something she has just accepted. She gets out of the carseat and car herself and then announces, 'someone come pick me up-there are cars EVERYWHERE!'

She was more than happy to be carried by Bubby through the mud.


We had never been to Lemos Farm before although I had always wanted to go. I just wasn't willing to deal with the crowd. I was pleasantly surprised by how big and extensive the whole place was. There was a petting zoo, pony rides, pumpkin picking, hot chocolate drinking, and a train ride.


The place was wall to wall Halloween decorations. I was impressed.

I feel a little bad about posting this (but not bad enough not to do it)--this is Bubby trying to take a picture of me, BVZ, and Norah with my iphone. Clearly she doesn't understand the concept of which way the phone should be turned. She kept trying to look into the little camera lens and said repeatedly, 'but I can't SEE you!' It makes me laugh because it reminds me of Stephanie's wedding where Bubby had a wee bit too much champagne and managed to get a hold of someone's hand held video camera. Again, she couldn't figure out which way to actually hold it and managed to shoot about 10 minutes of video of her right eye. All you hear in the background is, 'but I can't SEE you!' She then puts the camera down on its side and the next 2 hours of tape (until the battery runs out) is basically a shot of her dancing by herself.

Thankfully, she finally figured it out.

Fun decor, right?

The duck pond was one of Norah's favorite parts.

Yellow caution tape be damned (she wanted to pet the ducks).


Now, one of the main attractions at the farm are the pony rides. It actually bummed me out a little to see, but it is basically 4 or 5 tired old ponies strapped into harnesses. They walk in a circle with kid after kid after kid on top of them (think a living carousel). Anyway, Norah REALLY wanted to ride one of them but I wasn't so sure because parents weren't allowed in the corral. I had a sneaking suspicion that she would be stoked to get on a pony and then lose her mind when she realized she had to do it herself. I don't know, she might have been fine, but I wasn't really in the mood to take the chance. Besides, the pony corral smelled really, really bad and I wanted no part in that.

So, we placated her with the next best thing....the wooden rocking horses.

Now, Norah has been mildly obsessed with Toy Story lately, to the point where she insists on being called Jessie (I am Woody and BVZ is Buzz. Nothing says 2 year old like announcing to the entire grocery store, 'Woody, Woody, where are you? WOODY GET BACK HERE,' when I left her in the cart under Buzz's supervision to grab some milk). So, needless to say she was more than happy to ride 'Bullseye' over and over and over again.



There were like 6 rocking horses and she had to ride every one of them. In the rain. Multiple times. I took probably 97 pictures. You're welcome.


After Bullseye was retired Bubby bought tickets for the Spooky Train ride.


Clearly, Norah loves trains.

The train circles around the farm and then goes up a hill where they have a haunted town set up. It is pretty cute. Norah wasn't scared of any of the characters, rather was excited to shout, 'hi guys!' over and over again.




I really like this picture of Bubby. I plan to crop out Norah's head and use it for her online dating profile that I want to secretly set up (she won't do it herself).

Petting the big spider.

Visiting the ducks one last time.

Making sure all the seats in the house work.


Dancing.

Obligatory American Gothic shot.

The rain was really coming down by that point, so we headed to Sam's Chowder House for lunch. Norah kept asking when we could see and talk to Sam. BVZ and I were a bit confused as to why she thought someone named Sam was there, but we just told her that Sam was busy in the kitchen and we wouldn't get to see him. Well, turns out that on a previous visit, Bubby told Norah that a 3 foot tall wooden statute of a sea captain in the front lobby was 'Sam.' I couldn't believe she remembered that, and so she and Bubby visited Sam several times throughout lunch. She pounded half an adult sized portion of mac and cheese. I wondered aloud what their secret was. BVZ suggested (very kindly) that she preferred it to my mac and cheese because it was made with butter. Not butternut squash.

On the way out we stopped at another farm to pick out pumpkins for carving. Guess who insisted on pushing the wheelbarrow?

All by herself.

She then proceeded to run around the entire patch and attempted to pick up the biggest pumpkins she could find.


When she figured out that was futile, she started pointing and ordering BVZ to pick up the ones she wanted. I think all in all she tried to get us to buy her 17 pumpkins (we got 3).








There was a corn maze that BVZ decided he and I needed to go in. It was less of a maze and more of a black mud mess. The things we do for love.