Tanglewood Farms

It's a beautiful day and the outdoors was beckoning to us....

Sooooooo..... an impromptu field trip was in order. Megan has been in a good mood and I've wanted to check out this local farm stocked with minature animals. I wanted to organize a big playdate there but I also wanted to make sure it's appropriate for everyone's kids. You just never know. I have to say, Tanglewood Farms was so fun. Megan woke up from her nap and we decided to hit the road. The cool thing is that it's only about 15-20 minutes from our house. Our friends Ann and Nate decided to meet us there for our impromptu outing, which made it even more fun!!

Tanglewood is truly a petting zoo for small ones. The animals are minatures and most of them that the kids can get to are also babies. Megan LOVED all the animals that were smaller than she was. She refered to most of them as doggies - but hey, she's got the concept. The animals that were her size or a little bigger - she wasn't so fond out. These pygmy goats were the favorite of both Megan and Nate. We could've stayed in their pen for the entire visit.
Megan stayed on her feet most of the time... until one little goat jumped up on her and knocked her down. But Megan wasn't stunned (I think it scared me more than her) and she just sat and petted more goats.



After we saw all the animals, they had a great shady picnic area with lots of places for kids to explore. For the older kids they have a cool fort you can climb into. Megan wanted so bad to figure out that ladder - thankfully she didn't!

Our trip started with pony rides. Ann and I didn't think our kiddos could do it because it's not like they can stay on by themselves - but we got to walk with them and hold them on. They loved it. Here's little Nate. The entire time we were there, if Megan saw the horses through the fences, she went wild. She loved the horses! I guess she takes after her mom (for whoever doesn't know, I grew up with horses - each member of my family had a horse - my horse was a Quarter Horse named Beau.)
Although I didn't get a good picture of Megan on her real pony ride, she wanted to show that she's a natural in the saddle! I can just hear her in a few years..... "Daddy, can I have a horse?" (That's how it started with my family - I took horseback riding lessons and suddenly we owned 4 horses and went on family trail rides... I'll have to find some of those pictures to post).

So... for all my friend who are thinking of checking it out... here are my thoughts (aka - pros and cons)...... It was super fun. Bring lots of wet wipes. Take advantage of the covered picnic area (near the entrance by the ponies). I would say that if your kids aren't walking yet - it may be a little overwhelming. The down side of that is that kids under 1 are free and by the time they are walking you have to pay full price to get in. I went with the idea that I didn't know if we'd be there for 20 minutes or 2 hours. We stayed for almost 2 hours. The stroller was somewhat useless and cumbersome because we didn't take it in the animal pens and we were in there most of the time. But it was good to have at lunch because Megan was contained and she had a tray to eat off of. If I were to do it again - I'd bring it and park it in the front eating area and not even try to wheel it around the place. Yell if you go - we'd meet you there. It's not a cheap outing (if your kids are over 1) but it was fun! I also wouldn't go on a hot day!!!!! It's not shaded and it was hot and it was only 78 when we were there.