Cheap or realistic?

On Sunday we took Zoë to Silverman's Farm. It is officially autumn so I thought it would be fun to pick some apples and maybe some pumpkins. At Silverman's Farm they also have an animal farm (completely un-Orwellian) and on their website they say there is "a small admission fee." I assumed it would be a dollar or two. That sounds small to me. So, we arrive at the farm and decide to visit the animals first. Zoë loves animals -- as apparently most kids do, because it was quite crowded for 10am on a Sunday. Turns out by small they mean $3 per adult and $2 per child which is a total of $8 for my little group of three. For your average family it would be $10. Not exactly my definition of small, but I was happy to go along with it because Zoë was so excited. As you go in, they give you a little white paper cup for the food for the animals. You have to pay an additional twenty five cents for each quarter cup-full of corn that your child wants to feed to the animals. For us that amounted to an additional $2.50. Luckily, the feeding ended abruptly when the donkey ate the food cup and all and no more quarters were needed. It was fun to see Zoë run around excitedly and be mesmerized by all the different animals so I would definitely do that again -- even though it cost almost $13 for about a half hour's worth of entertainment. I more enjoyed watching the people over the animals. It was quite a crowd. A lot of NYCers in the "country" for the day all in their LL Bean uniforms. Husband and I felt out of place because we didn't have our fleece vests on. Luckily I did wear my capri jeans and he had is cargo shorts.

Next we moseyed on over to the apple picking. The first thing I see is a long line of people waiting for a tractor to take them up into the apple orchard. The next thing I see is the sign that says how much it costs to pick apples. $24 for a full bushel and $14 for a half! I found that outrageously expensive. I could go to my local super market and buy the same amount of apples for half the price. I've been apple picking before and I know it can be a lot of fun, but I also knew that we would have had to tell Zo&eml; to stop doing this or that and to come here about a thousand times before we even got into the tractor. Then, especially given the proximity to nap time, we would have pciked apples for ten minutes before she ran out of energy and then we would have had to wait again for the tractor. It just didn't seem worth spending $14 for 10 minutes of apple picking. My husband agreed, but then he also said we were cheap.

Zoë was momentarily disappointed about not going apple picking, but she felt immediately better when I let her pick out a gourd. It's her "decoration" as she calls it because when she asked me what the gourds were for I told her they're for decoration. After that she had a hot dog and apple juice that came in a red plastic apple followed by an apple cider doughnut. Next came 20 minutes of running around the pumpikin patch. All that was followed by a 3 hour nap. All-in-all I'd say it was a really good day. Anyone who knows me knows I would gladly throw $14 away if it was for something I thought Zoë would really enjoy and I just don't think I'm cheap. Do you?