At the beginning of October, Cody and Jaden had a couple extra days off school as a fall break. Our family took advantage of the free time on Friday and visited the nearby Oil Ranch, a real working 50-acre ranch with tons of great fall activities. We loved our time there!
The ranch had over 80 decorated scarecrows spread across the property.
Cody found his favorite!
Nearly all of the activities (other than paintball and mining) were included with the admission costs, so Cody and Jaden could return to any activity as often as they wanted.
The Kid Hopper was a definite favorite! The boys came back to this big "jumping pillow" 3 or 4 times during our visit.
The boys also got to experience some ranch/animal activities-- like riding a horse...
...and milking a cow. Jaden was the only taker for this experience.
One of the large barns was a petting zoo. Jaden and Cody breezed by the animals and weren't too interested in them. The boys spent a long time, however, sliding down a large slide in the barn and jumping in this hay pile.
Adley and Daddy decided to have a little fun in the barn too. :)
A few other fall-favorite activities included making our way through this hay bale maze...
...and going on a hayride. Since it was a weekday, the ranch wasn't busy at all. We had our own private hayride!
Halfway through the hayride, the driver stopped in a field to allow the cows to feed from the trailer. The cows got really close to us, which made Cody a bit nervous. Jaden, on the other hand, proudly fed the cows some hay and some of the "cow candy" we had been given.
Adley seemed interested in the cows too.
Our train ride wasn't very full of people either. The boys picked their own seats several rows away from each other.
Cody and Jaden laughed the most at this event-- the rubber duck races. Unfortunately, the third pump wasn't working for Daddy to join in on the competition. The boys happily raced against one another over and over again until we finally had them stop to let another family try it out.
The Oil Ranch had quite a few different playgrounds, most of which we didn't even visit. (Are you getting a sense of just how huge this place was?!) The boys did like trying out this spider web swing...
...and these hamster wheels were a HUGE hit!
Mommy even tried a few races with the boys. Moving these large wheels wasn't easy!
One of the last activities we did (before we started getting too hot-- it was a warm day!) was going on these special swings in a playground called Indian Village.
Daddy worked hard to spin the swings. (Mommy tried too, but Daddy's fast running gave a much faster ride!)
The boys had a bit of a learning curve with figuring out how to jump onto the sandbags, but once they got the hang of it, they both rode for quite some time.
Once he got it spinning fast enough, even Daddy took a ride.
At the very end of our visit, all three of our kids were allowed to pick out a free mini-pumpkin to take home.
By this point, we had been at the Oil Ranch for a few hours, so our little girl was wiped out! Cody and Jaden were happy to select a pumpkin for her.
Other than the heat and humidity that morning (which doesn't feel at all like pumpkin patch weather!), we were so pleased with our visit to the Oil Ranch. Definitely a spot we'll go to again!
