Pumpkins in the Park

This is basically host by the Children’s Discovery Museum and it’s located at the front of the building on the grass area. It’s nice for the kids as there are alot of free crafts to do (spiders making, trout fish hat making, paper bag puppets, coloring, etc). There’s also some small carnival games for kids to play. There are alot of sponsor booths with displays and learning info, an area where you can buy pumpkins and food trucks for food. It may only be hard to get around as there are alot of people and can get crowded. Again don’t expect too much as this is not your typical fair ground festival kind of affair, but it can be nice for kids/​family to go out and enjoy as it is.

Guadalupe River Park Conservancy hosted another Pumpkins in the Park at Discovery Meadow in downtown San Jose last Saturday. This was our second time to this event and we were glad to see some improvements.
This year, there were more booths for children. Through the educational and fun activities, you got to learn about the salmons in the Guadalupe River, the importance of eating vegetables, make scary spiders, decorate pumpkins, etc. They even brought out the giant Monopoly pieces for anyone to play. It was fun rooting for the little ones as they mustered their strength to roll those big dice that were each twice the size of the kid. Closer to the music stage, there was a mini straw bale maze for tots. Very cute! All aboard that colorful choo-​choo train in front of Children’s Discovery Museum and rode around the park. It’s good to be a kid.
The «carnival game alley» was a great addition but very congested with all the kids, parents and strollers concentrated in one area. As popular as it was, for next year, they should consider allocating more space so the kids could wait safely in line for the games.
There were also beautiful hand blown glass pumpkins by local artists for sale. But these fragile pieces got me worried a little with so many little hands reaching to touch them. This was not a full blown pumpkin patch but it did the job for the younger ones and still a fun-​filled event. Most of all, it was free to enter. The only issue was probably finding parking. I would recommend taking the light rail. Stress-​free (one less thing to worry about for the parents) and it brings you to the front door of Children’s Discovery Museum and Discovery Meadow where they hold the annual Pumpkins in the Park.