Midwest Road Trip: Children's Farmstead

This summer, we took a family road trip out to Minnesota to visit Jason's parents. On the long drive up, we chose a few stopping points to break up our travel. Since Kansas City was on our travel route anyway, we decided to stay there for a couple days and tour the city a bit. Our first stop was to this really fun children's farmstead in Overland Park.

There was such a wide variety of activities to do at this place. We happily entertained ourselves for several hours here! First, the boys tried their hand at pole fishing. Daddy showed the boys how to ready the bait (the boys weren't too interested in touching the worms themselves...).

Then, it was time to cast the line and wait...

Although he waited patiently and tried a few different locations, Cody unfortunately never caught anything. Those fish loved stealing his worms, though! Pretty early on, Jaden decided he liked fishing off the dock better.

Jaden was so proud when he pulled up this guy! How fun!

Next, the boys went on a pony ride.

We went back to this pedal tractor racing area a few different times during our visit!

Because it was early afternoon on a hot day, we took a few breaks in the shade on these swings throughout our visit. You get to see three pics of the same thing because all three kids chose to smile at three different times! This is when I need to figure out how to photoshop... :)

Although we missed the daily milking demonstration at this dairy barn, the boys got to practice some milking with these buckets.

We also got an up-close view of some cows and pigs in the barn.

One of Mommy's favorite aspects of the Deanna Rose Farmstead was its living history. The facility was designed to depict a turn-of-the-century farm and village. Most attractions that we stepped into had an employee dressed in old-time clothes there to answer questions and teach us some historical facts. Adley and the boys enjoyed trying out this corn grinder inside the Kanza Indian Encampment.

The boys were astonished to see the inside of this one-room school house and see how differently it was set up from their own classrooms today.

The reading materials appeared to be a bit more modern, however. ;)

The boys LOVED learning about the purpose of a dunce cap and thought it was just hilarious to stick Adley in the corner.

The employee in Ben's Bank was probably the most excited to visit with us. He talked for a long time about this old-fashioned safe and told us how it was protected with a special combination that could only be used at two different times of the day! The safe was even supposed to be dynamite-proof.

At the end, the boys got to make their own "money" by doing crayon rubbings over a few templates.

We learned a little about the history of hair-cutting at Ray's Barber Shop...

and then saw how horseshoes were fashioned at John's Blacksmith Shop. The lady running this station truly did give us a demonstration of how to heat and shape the horseshoe. Jaden and Cody were fascinated!

Of course, a visit to the village wasn't complete unless we stopped at the ice cream parlor. Yum!

After our own tummies were full, we decided it was only fair to share the love with these hungry pygmy goats. They were all SO eager to drink from the milk bottles that we purchased. I love the expressions on Jaden and Cody's faces!

Even Adley tried some goat-feeding too!

These goats were so funny to watch, as they butted each other's heads and climbed atop poles. We commented that these goats acted just like twin brothers! ;)

The last portion of the farmstead was set up almost like a zoo. We got to see horses, donkeys, turkeys, ducks, hawks, prairie dogs, and pigs. I didn't take many pictures of this section, as our crew was getting a bit tired and breezed fairly quickly by the exhibits. We ended our visit with some time on a few different playgrounds.

We loved our time at this farmstead and would highly recommend it to anyone passing through Kansas City!