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| Welcome to Belvedere Plantation! |
Belvedere Plantation is set up like an autumn amusement park. Acres and acres are covered with kid-centered activities like a corn maze, spooky slides, a petting zoo, pumpkin patch, face painting, cart races, zip lines....I can't remember everything that was there! It was really fun and we all had a great time.
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| One of Elise and Anja's favorite things at Belvedere Plantation was the flower garden. This was planted like a vegetable garden, with rows and rows of flowers. It was like something out of a fairytale, wandering through this area that was thick with flowers. |
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| Very cool spider web for climbing... |
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| and relaxing. |
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| This was called the pillow bounce. |
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| The girls LOVED it! |
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| Petting zoos are always a favorite. |
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| Anja petting a goat, with her nose from the pig races (see below). |
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| Kid-sized zip line! |
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| Elise wanted me with on the first time, then told me (politely) to get lost, she could do it on her own. |
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| At first I took the girls one at a time, but they didn't like to wait, so Grandpa helped out by taking Anja while I stayed with Elise (we are in the background). |
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| My mom took this picture and I don't think she realized until later that Elise and I are in the background. Two kids in one shot! |
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| WOO HOO!! |
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| Rope swings. I have great memories of doing this as a kid, and Elise and Anja were VERY excited to give this a try. |
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| Anja was a little too short and couldn't touch when she got up on the rope, so Grandpa got on the other side to catch her. |
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| The Pumpkin Mountain slide was a tunnel slide through a hill. Very cool! |
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| Heading off somewhere. |
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| Corn maze! I don't know if this corn was some kind of special variety for mazes, but it did not look like regular corn. Even Elise commented that "it looks like bamboo." It made for a great maze, though, as they grew closer together than "regular" corn. |
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| A slide in the corn maze! |
Pig Races
I'd heard of pig races, but never seen one. I'm kind of glad that this was my first experience, because seeing pig races on an old plantation in Virginia seems more authentic than anywhere else. Belvedere Plantation has all their staff in red t-shirts and overalls, and they really get into their roles. Part of the pre-race entertainment was pumpkin carving and smashing (truly), and Elise caught part of a pumpkin.
The guy running the pig races sang songs and told jokes and was quite entertaining. Before each race he picked a person to represent each section of the crowd and that section's representative pig. For the first race, Anja was chosen to represent our section (and the green pig). She went down front and held the green flag while we cheered on our pig.
I don't know what I expected from pig races, but they were fun! The little pigs ran along the path pretty calmly, coming up to the "jumps" and either going over, under or around them. Once those pigs got past the last jump, though, they took off toward the barn (where I assume some food was waiting for them).
In that first race, our green pig won!! Because she was the flag girl and her pig won, Anja got a pig nose, which she wore with pride.
Horse Races
The girls had a very fun time racing on some blow-up horses.
See a video here: Horse Race
Cart Races
We all enjoyed the cart races, except for Grandma, who took Anja to facepainting to console her because she was not tall enough to go on the "big kid" carts.
Choosing Pumpkins
Belvedere Plantation has huge pumpkin fields and takes people out to them on hay racks pulled by tractors. We were having so much fun with the other attractions that we ended up with not enough time to take the ride out to the field to pick pumpkins. Instead, the girls picked from the wagon that was up by the entrance.
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| Elise takes her pumpkin choosing very seriously. |
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| Those are some good looking pumpkins! |
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