Fall Break 2017

It just so happens that the kid's fall break fell a month after my sister moved to a new city, Columbus. We decided that it would be the perfect place to get away to for a few days. We were excited to get to see Aunt Andrea and Uncle Chris. I think it is going to be pretty cool having my big sister closer so that she can see the kids more often. After the kids got out of school we began our journey toward Columbus. A few weeks before the trip I discovered that Ed Sheeran was going to be performing the same night that we were arriving. Thankfully Grandma and Grandpa decided to head up to Columbus for a visit, so they got to watch the kids while we headed downtown for the concert.

Date night with the wife. 

The whole crew. We were on the back row, but at least we were there!

We were sitting almost even with the stage. We missed seeing some of the stuff on the screens,but we got a birds eye view of how he was using his looper pedal. He literally was a one man band. Since I had only recently become a big fan of his, I only knew a little over half of the songs that he played, but the show was amazing! 

Jennifer and I said that we would definitely like to go see him again the next time that he is performing close to us.

The next day it was raining so we decided to head over to Chuck E Cheese for a little indoor fun.The kids had a blast playing all of the games and we finally decided to cash in our tickets that we had been saving up. Brinley picked out a playdoh toy. Landon picked this out after looking for about 10 minutes at all the options. It looked like a little toy battle arena. They were both so excited to get back to Aunt Andrea's so that they could start playing with them.

Well it turns out that the toy Landon had picked out was actually just a board! The box did not contain any of the action figures that it had shown on the front of the box. He was devastated. So me and the little man got back in the car and headed back to Chuck E Cheese to see if they could help us out. They let us exchange it for a new prize! Landon was so happy!

Then we headed over to check out one of the public libraries. Landon was so tired that he fell asleep in the car. Brinley enjoyed the kid area.

A Columbus ice cream place called Jeni's was next on the list of places to explore. They had some very odd flavor combinations, but we all found something that we liked. Landon picked out the purple one which was wildberry lavender flavored and I thought tasted like perfume, but he said he loved it! The two that I picked were sweet potato eclair and salted peanut butter with chocolate flakes. We would all highly recommend Jeni's to anyone visiting the area.

The kids both approved! 

The next day we headed out early for one of the kid's highlights of the trip which was a visit to COSI, the Center of Science and Industry.

Aunt Andrea and Landon learning about how much energy, or pedaling, it takes to light up some light bulbs. 

Landon was in love with this huge train track. It baffled us because at home he rarely wants to play with his train table.

We spotted Thomas while we were in the train area.

What in the world do you think Aunt Andrea and Landon could be lifting up in the air?

Brinley was helping them too! You can see that in the background they are in fact lifting up a car! Science is amazing because without the use of a lever there is no way that they could ever lift up any car.

Aunt Andrea was the only one brave enough to take a ride on the tight rope unicycle.

The kids exploring the inside of a space capsule.

Landon really enjoyed the water table even though this picture may not show it. I think he was sad because that other kid got in front of him and put his ball on it. 

Landon even dabbled in the painting area to create a masterpiece.

Brinley absolutely loved the farmers market vegetable and fruit stand area. She got so engulfed in trying to put all the right produce into their correct bins. The only problem was that as soon as she would get everything in order some other kids would mess something up. It was a vicious cycle that Brinley was trying to correct. It was funny seeing her trying to run around and pick up everything. It almost is how her mother and I feel at home with trying to clean the house. Every time we get things in order the kids come behind us and mess everything up.

We were just walking down the hallway and spotted this worker with his tarantula. Jennifer practically ran down the hallway with the kids. The rest of us stuck around to touch the little guy. It was actually terrifying, but I saw small kids doing it so I did too!

We found these little pulley chairs. We both sat down in one and tried pulling ourselves up. Jennifer was getting all the way up and I was struggling. I know that I am bigger, but it didn't make sense because I know that I am stronger than her. Then I tried out her chair and realized that it was really easy. Turns out that each chair was different in that it had more pulleys and this one had 3, which made it the easiest. I was sitting in the hardest one that only had 1.

We also wondered upon this room where they had a production studio complete with a green screen. We sent grandpa up there and kept changing the backdrop. We would ask him questions to see if he could guess what was going on behind him. We just thought we were giving good clues, but turns out that when we went around we discovered that he could see what was going on the whole time on the monitor.

This little drum was attached to the bar that Brinley is holding onto. The bar took your pulse and then the drum would beat and the heart would light up in correspondence with your heart beat. I thought it was pretty awesome.

This place is huge and even though we had about 5 hours to explore it still wasn't enough time. We are already planning a return visit and possibly a season pass. The kids could have played in this place for days! I would definitely recommend it if you are ever in the area.

After COSI we headed over to Dave and Buster's for all the big kids to have a little fun. I had never been in one before and I was actually pretty excited about it. It is just a big person Chuck E Cheese. Grandma stayed out in the car with the kids because they fell asleep on the way there. Here everyone was playing a game of trivia.

Jennifer playing her first game of red solo cup, aka beer pong. I even tried my hand at it and actually set the high score. The kids woke up and came in just about the same time we had used up all of our credits. They wanted to play some games but I told them that they would have to wait until our next time.

We all grabbed a bite to eat before packing up everything and making the 3 hour drive back home. The kids really enjoyed their fall break spending time with family up in Columbus. I have a feeling that we will be going back to visit sometime soon. Thanks for reading and God bless!