Weekend with our nieces

Our nieces came and stayed with us for the last weekend in September.  My brother and sister-in-law were planning to be out of town for an adults' weekend with my sister-in-law's family.  We tried to think of fun things we could do to stay busy and make it a fun weekend.  Our friend Bri told us about going to the South Farm Showcase last year at Mizzou and how much fun it was.  It ended up that our weekend with the girls was when the showcase was being held.  It is a completely free event (besides some things you can buy if you choose) and is ran by CAFNR (College of Agriculture, Forestry, Natural Resources).  The South Farm is a part of Mizzou used for research and teaching.  Some of the activities at the showcase were launching a weather balloon, cockroach races, tomato and pepper tasting, corn and straw bale mazes, an exotic animal petting zoo, sawmill demonstrations, milking a cow, running the bases and so much more.  It ended up being a perfect weather day and there were so many things we could do.  We got there and parked, and then started with a ride on the golf cart up to the main area (which our niece Kaylen was SO excited about).  Hudson rode in the stroller, so I pushed him and we followed along behind.

 We then got a hay ride to go to the barn.

Hayride

Petting (and feeding) the cow

Eric had to go first to stick his hand in the fistulated cow.

 Milking the cow:

Hay maze:

 Face painting:

We played soccer and putt-putt on the turf:

We also picked out little pumpkins, Kaylen talked to some students about bugs and plants, and ate tiger-striped ice cream!  We ended our few hours at the farm happy, hot, tired, and ready for lunch!

That was our main activity out of the house.  It's a lot of work to get 4 kids ready to go, loaded up, and then to keep track of them out somewhere.  The rest of the weekend, we played, went to the park, decorated cookies, painted pumpkins (from the showcase), watched movies, made build-your-own pizzas, and had a fun time!

Thanks for coming and spending the weekend with us, Kaylen & Clara.  We had so much fun!