Fair Oaks Farms

I forgot to post about one more adventure with Mckay's parents. This happened between the beach day and the downtown Indianapolis day. We took a trip to Fair Oaks Farms. It's located about 45 minutes away and it a BIG dairy farm.

You can look around at displays and exhibits inside, and then hop on a bus for a tour outside around the facility. They show you where the dairy cows live and where they are milked. It really makes you think about all the work (from both humans and cows) that goes into each cup of milk.

Being a milk making facility, they only keep girl cows that make milk. So they keep them on a constant schedule of pregnancy and lactation. With so many pregnant cows, it's almost guaranteed that there will be several calf births on the day of your visit. You can view them in the birthing barn.

They bring a live, laboring cow into a "theater" of sorts. The cow is protected from onlookers by a glass wall. You sit quietly in the darkened room, wait and watch. It really is fascinating to see.

It's amazing watching the momma cows work all by themselves with almost no intervention.

The baby boy calves are shipped off to facilities for "other" uses, and the girls are kept there to be raised and  to make more cows/milk. And the circle of life starts over!

A new addition to the farm is the Pig adventure.

 Similar to the cows, you get to see how the pigs live and are cared for, and where they birth new pigs.

This is really just a pig raising, inseminating and birthing facility. All the babies born here are sent to different farms. And I guess there's not a big market for pig milk....?

Needless to say, the two boys loved seeing all the animals. After the tours, we had a delicious lunch of  gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and paninis, made from cheese produced right there at the dairy.

Dallin and Connor shared a quesadilla and got most of the sour cream on their faces.

Then we played outside for a bit. There was a huge trampoline-balloon-pillow thing.

We all jumped on it for a while.

It was a fun day at the farm.

Indianapolis and White River State Park

On the last day of their visit, we went to Indianapolis. We got lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Naturally, there was rock music playing. Dallin conducted.

 And Connor danced.

The picture doesn't quite capture how hilarious/cute his dance is. He moves his fists back and forth while moving his whole upper body and head. It cracks me up!

 We had an awesome, straight out of the 60s, hippie waitress.

The boys followed behind her as she danced around the restaurant.

(It was an early lunch on a weekday so the place was practically empty.)

 Then we went to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, our first visit there.

We've lived in Indiana 3 years now and been to Indy several times, but I'm still surprised at how many things we have yet to do here.

This is at the very heart of downtown.

It's in the middle of a roundabout street with cars driving around it all the time.

Looking at the water feature on the monument.

You can go up to the top of the monument and look out over the city. It costs $2.00 to ride the elevator up, or you can walk up the 32 flights of stairs for free. Which one do you think we did?? 

 It was cool to walk all the way to the top, but I definitely got tired and had to take several breaks.

It didn't help that we were usually carrying one of the boys. Exhausted and nearing the top on a part of the steps without air conditioning, the $2 elevator ticket didn't seem so bad after all.

But we kept going and we made it to the top!

 The view was pretty awesome.

The walk back down the steps wasn't as exhausting, but still tired my muscles. I could definitely feel it the next day. And the day after that... 

 Next we went to White River State Park. The White river runs right through Indianapolis and there is a beautiful, wide open park around it.

We wanted to tour the park in style so we went to a bicycle rental kiosk. They have several different kinds of bikes. From a one seater like this one... 

 ...to this six seater.

Yes, we rode all over the park in a four-pedaler bicycle with two kids in a basket. It was awesome. Seriously, this probably makes my top ten list for most fun tourist adventures. 

Each adult seat had foot pedals to power the bike. Mckay's "driver" seat had the steering wheel that actually controlled our direction. My seat had a faux wheel, which kept throwing me off when I'd try to steer but the bike didn't listen.

Dallin and Connor were in heaven.

We rode down a beautiful scenic pathway.

We stopped for a break to take a picture,

and to let the boys try driving.

There is a canal off the river with a walkway along it for a few miles.

You can rent gondola boats to take you down the canal, but we stayed on our bike along the canal walkway.

The bike rental lasted an hour, but I think we all could have kept going.

We found a grassy area and flew some some wooden airplanes: a parting gift from Grandma and Grandpa.

I love these action shots of Connor.

I can't tell if Connor is excited to fly the plane in this picture or throwing a tantrum because Mckay is trying to take it from him. Given Mckay's face and the talking-to it looks like he's about to give, I'd guess it's the latter.

We explored a few more beautiful places in the park.

Then it was time for Grandma and Grandpa Easton to head over to the airport to catch their flight. We loved having them visit us. We always have such a great time showing of our state.

Indiana Sand Dunes

When Mom and Dad Easton came to visit in September, we saw lots of new sight together, but we also went back to some old favorites, like the Sand Dunes.

It feels like being on an ocean beach (minus the salt water) because Lake Michigan is soooo huge you can't really see land on the other side in any direction.

Connor was not at all afraid of the water like he was last year.

He had a blast catching each wave with grandpa.

He took occasional breaks to play in the sand.

Dallin got tired of the water but was amazed by the endless supply of sand to play with and bury his feet in.

Connor got buried too.

A large group of Purdue students made a slip-and-slide but needed some water on the tarp to make it slippery.

We lent them our bucket and child labor to help the slide.

It was a beautiful, not too hot day. By evening, it was feeling much cooler.

 Family on the beach:

Connor is grumpy most likely because We made him stop playing for a second to be in a picture.

We stopped by the nearby Bass Pro Shop on the way back home, looking significantly more tan.

We saw the stuffed bears...

 ...and got some pressed pennies to add to our collection.

And Dallin played some kind of hunting video game.

More on the visit coming up!