Skagit Valley Farm Tours 2011 (day 1)...

I grow eager in anticipation for the Skagit Valley Farm Tours every year.  I LOVE visiting all of the farms and watching the kids play with overwhelming excitement.  This year we decided to take FULL advantage of the event and broke it up into two days. 

On Saturday we headed out to Taylor Shellfish Farm...

Lucky us found Olivia and her parents there as well.  This was an added bonus for both Jack and Emily.  I think their squeals of excitement were heard miles away.  The kids quickly jumped up on the bench and began feeling around in the touch tank...

The kids were fascinated with the starfish...

Whoaaaa gooey duck...

Our favorite part of this stop was the generous serving of clams and oysters...

Next, the boys headed to the beach area while Emily and made our way over to the "fairy house" making area...

The best part of the morning was when the train passed by right in front of us...

This is one BEAUTIFUL farm...

After the shellfish farm we made our way to our usual spot, Golden Glen Creamery...

Daddy, Charlie and Emily headed straight for the ice cream while I followed Jack to the tractor...

 Then we headed in to pet the animals.  There were a few goats and a baby calf that was only TEN days old...

Sometimes we think we need to invest in a few cows with as much milk these kiddoes consume.  We thought we had better find out how good the kids were at milking before we made such a big purchase...

 Our last stop was to pet the Big Daddy Cows...

After a few hours out usually we would have made our way home but for some reason we decided to press our luck and made one more stop.  The Sakuma stop was a new one for us but we were happy that we took the risk.  The kids were definitely on their way to melt downs but there was just enough stuff around to entertain them and keep the fussies away.

GIANT tractors and a plethora of ride on toys...seriously, who could be fussy with that?

As we made our way to the main area the kids squeals came out once again as they spotted Olivia again.  All of the kids quickly lined up for a tractor choo-choo ride and took off.  This guy was AWESOME.  He took those kids around and around FOREVER...

The weather didn't hold out too long after the ride so we quickly made our way back to the car and went home...

That evening Grandma Patti and Grandpa Jim came over bearing gifts from their big trip to the Bahamas.  The boys each got a tee shirt and Emily got this mermaid shirt that you can color over and over again...