Ardenwood Farm

One of our favorite things to do as a family is go visit farms. They're super fun for the kids, they get to see live farm animals and not just read or sing songs about them, and you're out in nature. We're lucky we live in the bay area where there are plenty of beautiful farms open to the public within 30 min to 1 hour away.

We went to one a couple weekends ago that had awesome hiking trails in Los Altos called Hidden Villa, where we saw goats getting milked, an organic garden, and many other farm animals. You can sign kids up to milk goats so we'll definitely be back for that.

I didn't want to lug my big old SLR which is hard with the kids, but I regret not taking any photos when we were there.

Today, we decided to check out yet another farm, just 30 min in Fremont called Ardenwood. Again I didn't want to drag my camera along, so I decided to use Instagram on my iphone for all the pics. I know that's what many parents resort to and it worked out fine. With my kids, it's really the memories I want to capture, not how good the photos are, but it's hard when photography is also something you're into.

Back to Ardenwood - it's so idyllic and pretty over there. We made it in time for their animal feeding program. Alia got to feed alfafa to two different breeds of goats and sheep. Super fun! We also walked around their historic farmhouse from 1877, and checked out their gardens. There was also a tree-lit area where tons of monarch butterflies fly around. It was so pretty and I wish I captured a shot of them, but they were flying too fast.

Afterwards, we went to this historic street in the same city called Niles lined with old antique shops. We only had time to eat an early dinner but I definitely want to go back to check out the old shops one day.

Ardenwood also has a train that goes around the farm which opens in April, and an annual sheep shearing day the same month which is a big festival. As silly as this sounds, the whole family (well except for Kian who's too young) is really excited to go. Tim and I love that kind of stuff and turns out Alia does too. When she was young, her favorite show was one called Tec about a tractor who talked and lived on the farm. Except it wasn't a cartoon, it was shot in a real farm in Ireland. The episodes just featured everyday farm living and she memorized all the episodes, so stuff like sheep-shearing, well, she actually knows what that means.