July 6: Farming, Hiking, Swimming

We started the morning with Donut World donuts (we miss them so much!) before getting ready to head out for the day.

Jay's parents were spending the day packing up for their annual trip to Idaho, so we wanted to get out of the way for the day.  Morgan's girlfriend's family owns a farm and was in the middle of wheat harvesting, so we went up to look at the farm equipment and see how they harvest.  (Another thing we don't see much of in Texas!)

Rachel taking Abby for a
tractor ride.

Rachel took the kids on rides in the tractor, and her uncle took them in the combine for a pass through the wheat field.  They were in big machine paradise!

Even my biggest kid (Jay) wanted a ride in the combine!

Morgan was there helping stack hay bales.  As it turns out, they make a pretty good climbing area!

Jonathan (way up there!), Emily, Abby, and Ben playing in the hay.

We left Rachel and Morgan to their hard work and drove down to Hocking Hills (another essential Ohio check off).  We started at Ash Cave.  The walk in was gorgeous and green.  There had been enough rain that all the little creeks and gullies had some water.

We love creeks!

Ash cave itself is a huge, open over hanging cave.  It's rather amazing as you round a bend in the trail and suddenly this enormous rock formation is in front of you.

Ash Cave as you first come to it.

Playing in the sand.

Holding up the cave!

If Emily can do it, so can I!

Ben had to try too!

Anywhere there's water, we have to play in it!

Last time we were here, it
was dry enough that the waterfall
had dried up completely.

Jay took the kids up the stairs to walk along the gorge rim (I don't do heights!) so I walked back out to the front of the park to meet them.

Up the stairs they go!

We still had some time, and the kids wanted to see more of Hocking Hills, so we stopped at Cedar Falls next.  The walk in was a little longer and involved lots of stairs.  Poor Benjamin got a little tired and needed to be carried for awhile.

We were up at the top of that!

But all the walking was well worth the view at the end!

Spectacular Cedar Falls

The water was COLD, but the kids wanted to go wading.  It actually got fairly deep farther in, but we kept them at knee depth.  They really didn't want to leave, but we eventually dragged them away and back up the stairs to the car.

On our way out of the park, we spotted something else distinctly Ohio--some deer crossing the road!

Our last stop for the day was out to our friends the Atwoods' house.  The kids hadn't had enough water for the day with all their wading and went swimming, but it was a little too cold for me and even Jay declined.  We had a lovely visit and dinner, and Jonathan discovered how much fun it is to pick blueberries out in their orchard.  He was even willing to try a few and decided that he really liked them!

Benjamin had definitely had
enough and wasn't willing to
cooperate for a picture!

It was another late night when we made it back to Grandma's house.  (More fireflies for Ben!)  Jay's parents were planning to leave early in the morning, so we said our good-byes before the kids went to bed.  Another crazy, busy, Ohio day!