My Family had a Blast Painting Pumpkins at Collegeville Orchards

Every year my family looks forward to our trip to the apple orchard in St. Joseph. It's a  beautiful drive from Sartell to St Joe noticing all the beautiful fall colors. The kids have their favorite go-to activities and annual traditions they look forward to each year. Yesterday after church, it was beautiful out and we decided to take in a trip to the orchard, since the kids have been asking when they can pick out pumpkins for weeks now. We finally put our plan into action. When we pulled up the kids jumped out of the truck and grabbed a wagon and headed for the pumpkin patch. Harper, who is 7, picked out one of the biggest pumpkins in the patch. While Wyatt, who is 4, picked out a much smaller pumpkin. They had a blast going through making up their minds on the perfect pumpkins.

After that we headed into the shop and bought a big bag of our favorite apples. For my family, their favorite happens to be Macintosh. We also got a few hot chocolates and apple cider and went outside and drank them sitting on the hay bales. Before we finished our drinks,  the kids were off, already asking for quarters to feed the different animals in their petting zoo. The animals are so adorable and seem to really like you if you have food to feed them, even enough to climb up the fence or to stick their heads all the way through the fence.

After we ran out of quarters. We set off for our next adventure.

This time, it was time to paint a mini pumpkin. For $3, you buy a ticket and get to paint a pumpkin any way you like it. I would suggest doing this first to allow time for the pumpkin to dry before venturing home.

Just before we left, we stopped and played a family game of bags and took a picture of the kids by the sign that shows how tall they are and we like to compare it to previous years to truly compare the difference.

This year was a success -- can’t wait to carve and paint the pumpkins till next year Collegeville.

Collegeville Orchards is located near St. Cloud, Minnesota in the scenic Collegeville hills. They are open 7 days week and 10am-6pm each day through the end of October.

You can pick up discount gift certificates if you decide to head out there on The Value Connection.