Yup, it was a day full of pirates! But before we get to the pirates, the trip getting there was quite adventurous. We left our house around 10am for a 10:30 birthday party....plenty of time. Get everyone loaded in the car, Ben pulls out of the driveway while I plug the address into the GPS. As we get down the road, the GPS keeps saying "match not found". Well, darn GPS, I know the address is correct as it is printed on this card; however, it is not working. The next logical step is to call the phone number and asked for directions. The guy who answers the phone tells us how to get there. About 30 minutes later we are driving though the nastiest, grossest, most disgusting part of the town that I didn't even know existed. Ben called it "Crack-worth", a bit of a play on its actual name since that is about how slimy the area was. So I decide to call my friend for directions. We get some different directions, but after about 15 minutes realize that we are in the next county. Fabulous! We call again. This time we finally get directions that work and 1 hour later we arrive. Anyway, the birthday party was at this really cool Pirate's Cove.
It's basically a warehouse size sand box with a huge wooden pirate ship built above it with things to climb on, play on, and slide down. It also has some super cool air shooters that shoot these little foam balls.
Max really enjoyed this part, especially since he would not play in the sand. Every time we put him in the sand, he would make a really weird face and come right out. And if by some rare chance he was near the sand and some got on his hand, he would immediately run over to us with his hand held out and say "dirty" wanting us to wipe it off.
Alexis was playing in the sand, but not actually getting dirty. She primarily would walk on it and then go up onto the play structure.
She did make a friend who played her style and they sat under at a picnic table for a while making "pies".
It actually was kinda funny to see all these kids running around like maniacs and literally rolling around in the sand, and then there are my kids either walking around outside the sand box or sitting at a picnic table! I love my kids! Because then I didn't have to give them a hose down when we got home or dig sand out of diapers!!!!
Perhaps one of the funnier moments was not in the mega sandbox, but in the jumpy toys they had surrounding the sand box. One blow up tunnel was particularly intriguing to Max because the place where you crawled in would blow air when you opened it. Here is Max upon opening:
But funny man Ben decided that coming out of the the opening looked more like ummmm.......well.......being born!
I thought it looked rather like a giant blue tush, but my sicko husband had other ideas. So of course he had to climb in and "crawl out"!
So there is Ben being "born, and here is Max being "reborn"!
Here are our two little pirates!!!!
And the best part was......our 60 minute trip there getting lost ended in a 20 minute trip home!!!!
We drove about 1 1/2 hours to get there which with a small 3 year old's bladder always makes for an interesting trip. We were about 10 miles away when Alexis states that she has to pee. I decide that she can hold it. We get about 8 miles away (out of all civilization) and she starts crying that she can't hold it. So we pull off the side of the road and she pees behind a small brick tower. Of course, Ben decides to take a picture, but he missed the action so here is the after shot. 
Finally we arrive. The first thing we do is take a "hay" ride. But, hay rides are not what I remember them to be from when I was a kid. I remember a whole wagon FULL of hay that you sat on and played around in. This hay ride was a bench with bales of hay under it. But, nonetheless, it was fun. 
Then we went to the petting farm. The petting farm including sheep, goats, a pig, turkeys, chickens, and rabbits.
Maxwell liked the "petting" part of the farm a lot better than Alexis who liked to walk up close enough to the animals but not close enough to touch them. Although, she did pet this baby goat I think. She would claim she wanted to feed them, get some food in her hand, and then as soon as the animal got close enough to eat it, she would throw the food on the floor. But my mom did like getting up close and personal!
After the petting zoo, we finally made it to the orchards. Of course as soon as Max saw the apples all he wanted to do was eat one. So I let him. Yup, right off the tree. I'm not sure if that was against the rules and I know it wasn't clean, but, hey, it was fun. And it sure beat the knock down drag out fit he would have thrown if he couldn't eat one. 
Alexis did enjoy picking apples that were low enough for her to reach, but the real thrill and challenge was being able to pick one that was high up. She had this idea before we got there that there would be ladders there (she must have read about apple picking somewhere because I have no idea where she got this from). When we broke the news that there were no ladders, she decided to make her own. 
Here are a few other highlights!!!!
