A Great Day for a Field Trip!

Yesterday, we were scheduled for a field trip. As of Monday, I wasn't sure we were going to make it since Nicholas was/is still fighting a head-cold but we decided we needed a fun little excursion and I'm so glad we did!

Our destination was the Olentangy Indian Caverns in Powell. Even though it isn't too far from our house and it's close to the zoo, we've never been. I've seen the signs for it along the road, but we've never made the time to check them out. Now we know what we were missing!

It's an underground cavern formed naturally by an underground river cutting it's way through the limestone. How cool is that! They have found artifacts down there that suggests it had been used throughout our states history by the Native Americans.

We had a private tour scheduled (perfect!) and our tour-guide was truly a lovely person, eager to share all her knowledge with our kids. She was also very patient with our group that had quite a few very little people going down steep, slippery steps sloooowwwwly :)

I didn't get any pictures of the beginning but it's basically a big hole in the ground with a wall built around it! Very cool and a little scary!
Here's some pictures of our tour:
This is deep underground folks!
See the big protrusion in the rock to the left of us? They call that their sculpture of the famous chief, Leatherlips who had been executed nearby for not joining forces with Tecumseh. His name was Leatherlips because his word was not easily broken, like a strip of leather, and since he had already signed a treaty to not attack the settlers, he would not go back on his word, even when facing death.
Cuties!

There was quite a bit of green down there. This has happened since the addition of the electric lights. There's constant moisture dripping down from the surface so with the addition of the lights, they have moss where it was once only rock.
The one of the largest beehive stalagmites:
More green:
If you're wondering how I got my claustrophobic self down in there and enjoyed myself, this picture shows how really big a good deal of it was:
There were plenty of places that were tight too. Fortunately, I could focus on helping Megan through therefore distracting myself ;) I don't have any pictures of the place that is the skinniest. I was busy with my death-grip on Megan ;)

We had a wonderful time there! There was so much history and cool facts. My kind of place :)

Thank you, Angi, for setting all this up! We missed you and your gang, but I can now fully appreciate why you didn't want to take Creux!

A Little Treat for YOU!

After posting about how much we love to bake, I thought I'd share a new recipe I picked up at The Old White Cottage. These Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies are a little cake-y, but we LOVED them! (usually we like our chocolate chip cookies chewy)

Enjoy!

Carving Pumpkins

Pumpkin carving is a favorite Halloween activity around here. Todd is Chief Pumpkin Carver, but all the kids scoop out their own pumpkin and choose a design. Oh, they were having a great time in all that slimy mess ;)
Love this picture :)
Chief Pumpkin Carver hard at work:

Brandon drew his own design this year while Megan and Nicholas both chose one from the Family Fun templates that Jenny posted. They turned out terrific!

Megan's is a big pumpkin eating little pumpkin-kabobs. I was trying to take these pictures without using a flash and they turned out a bit blurry. :(
Nicholas' is a pumpkin roasting marshmallow over his own candle.
Brandon's is a scary face with fangs.
So creative! I loved them all!

Tricks or Treats?

Last night was Trick-or-Treat in our neighborhood. The kids had a ball! We had actually bought costumes well in advance this year, which is something I never do since I'm a procrastinator at heart! The down side to this is that they lost some of the parts. I tell ya..I can't win here!

Without further lamenting, here's our little Trick-or-Treaters!

This picture is a little blurry, but I love it:
Our sweet little mermaid:
Nicholas is someone from GI Joe. We haven't seen it so I have no idea who he is!
Brandon was a commando-guy:
These boys love their action guys ;)

Ready to hit the candy trail!
We hope everyone has a fun and safe Tick-or-Treat!

The Tree in Our Backyard

One week ago:
I had to zoom in just to get a good shot of the leaves changing! I wish I had taken the whole tree, but you can see that there is plenty of green.

Today:
This tree actually looked like this a few days ago, but I couldn't get the picture I wanted until today. Had to wait for the sun to show up! Oh, the difference a week makes :)

Enchanting

The Animals

This place is a working farm so of course, they have animals! Some of the animals are out running around (chickens! yuck!) and some are a little more exotic and in pens:
Yep, that's a camel! They had peacocks too, but I couldn't get a good picture. So fun!
Megan decided she should be able to feed the goat a leaf she picked up.
Never mind the sgn ;) Little Rule Breaker.

This was the cleanest "chicken shack" I've ever seen!
Joy!
Check out that face!

The Fun Center

We have really been loving this nice weather! In a effort to enjoy of it as we can, we headed to a pumpkin farm yesterday so we could pick out our pumpkins before we need winter coats ;) At the last minute, I called Kristen to see if she wanted to join us since she has a bit of a break Wednesday afternoons and the pumpkin farm isn't too far from her school. We haven't seen much of our busy college girl this week so it was nice to spend some of the beautiful afternoon with her.

The fun center is a big hit with our gang.
Kristen left us to go back to class, but we stayed a while longer. There's so much to do there! We just bounce from one thing to another. I have more to come :)

A Pretty Fall Day

Fun in the sun: