Fall Break Fun!

So the big guy and his new school decided to take Fall Break this week starting on Halloween, which gave us 5 straight days of fun with Aidan.  Luckily, we had a special guest come into town to enjoy the extended weekend with us.   It was Grandpa John time!

Let's get started on Halloween.  Aidan spent the day with Mommy at work and was an excellent boy, coloring, playing Legos and playing on the Ipad.  That night, it was time for Trick or Treat!

As was seen earlier in the month, the boys were Astronauts this year.

 

Ready for Blastoff!

 

We have a few houses around that go bonkers for  Halloween, this is the first, complete with a laser machine that projected onto the driveway. But...

It was no mach for the "Scary House" as the boys call it....that place is awesome!

 

Here's a video of all the attractions....amazing:

Told you....freakin' awesome.

Astronauts are ready for some candy!

Much like last year, the boys had a ton of fun giving candy out....that's cool with us, they kept warm and gave all our candy out (including the junky candy (like Whoppers) to all the high schoolers that were Trick or Treating)...:)

 

I think these girls were dressed as babies?

So onto Thursday...we got up early and headed to the Lake of the Ozarks again to have some fun indoors and out with Grandpa John. 

 

Lake looks good, but the fall color has gone on away for the year.

Well, being that it was November 1st, almost all the fun attractions were closed, so we had to go to Plan B, which was visiting one of the biggest caves in North America, Bridal Cave. 

Pretty amazing place with rock formations that are with millions of years in the making.  Millions.

 

I think they called this "Niagara Falls"

These are called "soda straws"

 

 

 More cave...

 

One of the "lakes" in the cave.  If you look closely there is a ladder down in the lake that was from the 1800s, when explorers of the cave were present.  You can't bring the ladder out because it would disintegrate.

 

 They called this formation, the "Easter Bunny". See it?

 

Cave heads...

 

 Little spelunkers....

After a good BBQ dinner and some swimming at the hotel, Thursday was a wrap!

Friday morning, we got up and tried to find these bridges that were old suspension bridges around the lake.  We couldn't find them on Thursday, but once we had a chance to do some searching, we found  'em and they were really cool!

 

OMG!  A wood planked bridge...is it going to old our car????

 

 Yep, we made it across the "Shake Shake Bridge"  (PS, the "Shake Shake bridge is a bridge from Thomas the Tank Engine's movie, "Misty Island Rescue", which really shook and shuttered.)

 

Would you drive across something that looks like this?  It's actually called the Old Auglaize bridge and it was rated to hold 5 tons (at least that's what the sign said).

 

I was actually worried about staying on the reinforced drive path.  Had I got off them, we may have been in trouble. 

So the big thing we do at the Ozarks is Ha Ha Tonka State Park, which as you remember from last year, has a "castle" that you can hike to.  Such a cool place and a beautiful park.  We took some new routes this year and had a blast. 

But first, the castle....

 

The Lake and the trees!

 

Family shot!!

 

Big guys in the archway!

 

Sunny Mookie!

 

I still am amazed by the structure of this place....just awesome.

 

  Looking back at the water tower...

 

It's Aidan!

 

Bros!

 

Mookie picture of Mom and Dad!

 

The Windowsill picture 2012 style!

 

Big men, burned and charred castle.

So I mentioned that we took some new routes.  This time, down to the lake surface and some rapids from one of the springs that fills the lake.  It was a fun hike, little up hill, little down hill, rocky too!!

 

 

 So as I said earlier, we missed out on the "everything closes after October" and that unfortunately included Minor Mike's, the arcade place, that Aidan was so looking forward to going to.  So he was majorly bummed, but Daddy found a replacement.  Up in Columbia, Missouri I found this placed called "Gone Bonkers" and it truly was bonkers.  A massive 5 level 1000 square foot plus playground....it was cool!

 

Even Daddy got in and played!!

 

Grandpa John too!!

 

 Yep, that face pretty much says it all and forget about Minor Mike's :)

So the plan all along was to head up to Columbia (home of the University of Missouri).  Mostly we wanted to hit the famous pizza place, Shakespeare's Pizza. Located right on campus, it was a great experience and great pizza too!

 

The guys in the back asked the boys if they liked pizza, then threw these dough balls at them from above, surprising everybody! 

Finally, we had just enough daylight to walk up to Mizzou campus landmarks, the 6 columns.

The story...

 

Maybe the future college for these two????

 

 These two Chinese Lion carvings are 531 years old and guard the School of Journalism. 

 We made it home OK on Friday and were ready for more fun during the weekend!

Surprisingly, we had never taken Grandpa John to the A-B Brewery!?!  So Saturday morning we were up and ready to go to the brewhouse!

 

The boys HAD to get their picture by this old beer truck.

 

And Mookie had to have his giraffe come with us.  Maybe the giraffe wanted his two free drinks.

 

Big ol Clydesdale! 

Fun time in the Brew Kettle room.

 

 

We were really lucky to get to go to BOTH the bottling and canning lines, something we'd never done before, which was really cool! Took at all those bottles of Bud Light!

 And believe me, these are Natural Ice cans spinning at a whirling pace...

That's all for tonight.  A great stay with Grandpa John.  Thanks for all the fun....hope to see you again very soon!

Have a great night,

Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan