{"id":1753,"date":"2006-10-29T18:50:36","date_gmt":"2006-10-29T18:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/29\/pumpkins_and_ha\/"},"modified":"2006-10-29T18:50:36","modified_gmt":"2006-10-29T18:50:36","slug":"pumpkins_and_ha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/29\/pumpkins_and_ha\/","title":{"rendered":"PUMPKINS, HAYRIDES AND MICKEY MOUSE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onclick=\"window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=120,height=99,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\" href=\"http:\/\/dontgelyet.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/mickey.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Mickey\" height=\"82\" alt=\"Mickey\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/dontgeltoosoon\/images\/mickey.jpg?resize=100%2C82\" width=\"100\" border=\"0\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px\" \/><\/a> I&#8217;ve wanted to go on a hayride since <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Annette_Funicello\">Annette Funicello<\/a> did &#8211; in maybe &quot;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spinandmarty.info\/\">Spin and Marty<\/a>&quot; or maybe &quot;Annette&quot; &#8212; not sure which (these were <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mickey_Mouse_Club\">Mickey Mouse Club<\/a> stories, for those who are too young to recall.)&nbsp; Today I got my hayride &#8211; but it wasn&#8217;t the romantic kind with the guitars and the moonlight. <\/p>\n<p><a onclick=\"window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=130,height=98,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\" href=\"http:\/\/dontgelyet.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/hay_ride.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Hay_ride\" height=\"75\" alt=\"Hay_ride\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/dontgeltoosoon\/images\/hay_ride.jpg?resize=100%2C75\" width=\"100\" border=\"0\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Instead, we went with two amazing children and their equally amazing parents to a pumpkin  festival.&nbsp; There was a hayride (pulled by a tractor, not horses.)&nbsp; There was a petting zoo with goats and lambs and pigs.&nbsp; There was a simple wooden climbing thing in the shape of a train, with a tunnel and a caboose and a dining car (picnic table in a kind of box.)&nbsp; It was just wonderful and, nostalgic as we are for the early years of our own kids, we were ridiculously grateful to be included in this family adventure.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>We also were amazed that there were no souvenirs.&nbsp; No muzak.&nbsp; No fancy, produced play apparatus.&nbsp; The same stuff at this orchard\/pumpkin patch\/pre-school heaven must have been there for 25 years.&nbsp; And the kids were having a blast.&nbsp; They didn&#8217;t need fancy stuff or animated stuff or even stuff with fresh paint &#8212; just a gorgeous fall day, parents (and their friends) who loved them and their imaginations.&nbsp; I know this sounds really corny but after years at Disneyland and Disneyworld and Universal City (and we had fun &#8212; we did) I was just so struck by the simplicity of this place and its impact on these very very happy kids running around in a big field, putting pumpkins into wheelbarrows to take home, eating popcorn and racing their parents up and down the paths.<\/p>\n<p>No moral to this except if you have friends you like who love your kids, bring them along.&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve wanted to go on a hayride since Annette Funicello did &#8211; in maybe &quot;Spin and Marty&quot; or maybe &quot;Annette&quot; &#8212; not sure which (these were Mickey Mouse Club stories, for those who are too young to recall.)&nbsp; Today I got my hayride &#8211; but it wasn&#8217;t the romantic kind with the guitars and the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/29\/pumpkins_and_ha\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">PUMPKINS, HAYRIDES AND MICKEY MOUSE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[2490,399,967,2491,2489],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-disney","tag-fall","tag-kids","tag-materialism","tag-pumpkins"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-sh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}