Fall Break

Jaden and Cody got a long weekend off school surrounding the time Grandpa and Grandma were here for Jason's ordination. It was perfect timing! We loved having Grandpa and Grandma join our family for some of our Fall Break adventures.

Oil Ranch

We've visited this ranch/farm/pumpkin patch in October for the past couple of years and have always loved our experience! There is so much land that we never feel like we're fighting crowds, and there is such a variety of activities to do. 

Matt and Kim's family joined us for our day at the Oil Ranch too. As always, our kids were thrilled to play with their cousins!

Cody and Jaden fondly remembered jumping on this large inflatable, the Kid Hopper, last year, so it was the first activity they wanted to hit up this time.

Since there was no line for the hay ride, we went on that next. The kids laughed so much when all the cows poked their heads into the trailer to get the hay. I was surprised that no one was scared by these determined cows. Some of the kids even fed the cows right out of their hands!

All of the kids enjoyed running in these hamster wheels, although the kids are getting strong and fast enough now that the lone hay bale at the end of the track isn't always sufficient enough to stop them! After a few tears, everyone learned to slow down a bit, and all was well. :)

Next, we tried out these duck races. Our kids stood on opposite sides from their cousins and enjoyed sending the rubber duckies back and forth along the water chutes.

In years past, we've run out of time and energy to play mini-golf, so we made sure to try it out earlier this year. None of our kids finished the full course, but they enjoyed selecting which holes looked the most fun (or perhaps which ones were easiest!) and sampling the course.

Grandpa, Uncle Matt, and Daddy sure got a workout on this next one! These "Indian Sky Swings" required some running and pushing from the guys to get them going. All the kids hung on well and LOVED going as fast as the men could spin them.

Next, we spent a brief amount of time in the petting zoo barn, feeding the goats.

In a different barn, the boys absolutely loved running around in this loft, sliding down the slide, climbing up hay bales, and jumping in large hay piles. This kept them busy for a long time!

Just a handful of the kids were interested in taking a pony ride.

Adley was content to just try out this tractor.

Our last activity was riding the train, the O.I.L. Express. We were all pretty hot and tired by this point, so it felt great to just sit and enjoy the ride!

Before leaving, each child was allowed to choose one pumpkin to take home. Given the enormous piles of pumpkins, this made for quite the decision! What a beautiful day at the Oil Ranch!

Zoo Visit

Another activity we did during fall break was to attend our downtown Zoo Boo. Kids are encouraged to wear Halloween costumes for these weekend events at the zoo. Adley wore her actual costume, but the boys picked out some outfits from our dress-up bin (since Mommy wasn't yet done making their costumes!).

The special Zoo Boo events consisted of 1) collecting various stamps around the zoo in order to receive a candy bag and 2) getting free mini-pumpkins. Unfortunately, we received misinformation from a zoo worker, and our kiddos didn't receive a candy bag. This was a BIG bummer to our kids, but letting them pick out favorite king-sized candy bars at a gas station on the way home made up for it. We did enjoy the free pumpkins, at least!

Aside from the Halloween activities, we enjoyed just walking around the zoo. Our last visit was about a year ago, so Adley especially was much more interested in seeing and talking about the animals on this visit. We all liked seeing the zoo's new Texas Wetlands exhibit, which featured whooping cranes, bald eagles, and alligators.

Each time we visit, some of our kids' favorite exhibits include the bug house, the petting zoo, the prairie dog exhibit (especially when they get to climb through the tunnels themselves!), and of course, the carousel.

Corn Maze

Our last big fall break activity was visiting our church's corn maze. It was very well organized this year and tons of fun! There were lots of cute photo opp stations outside the corn field. Good thing I have some cute kiddos to pose for me! ;)

We had an absolutely gorgeous day for walking the maze!

The maze theme this year was "Under the Big Top," so the actual shape of the maze followed the theme.

Our main job in the maze was to find 14 posts containing letter clues, hidden throughout the maze. These letters, once written down on our official corn maze paper, would spell out the answer to a puzzle.

Some of the clues were quite difficult to locate, and we had to ask for help on a few.

Our second job in the maze was to find the way out!! We were given an orange flag to raise in case we got really stuck in the corn paths. We didn't need to use the flag, thankfully, as we actually found the exit even before we found all the clues!

We spent at least an hour and a half in the corn maze, so it was quite exciting when we finally had our puzzle completed and made it to the exit. Hooray!

After turning in our puzzle sheet and receiving a prize, we played for a little while on the grounds. They had hamster wheels (like the ones at the Oil Ranch), volleyball nets, slingshots, hay bales and large tractor tires to climb, and corn hole.

We sure love these fall days and extra time off school!