The Yankanin Family Vacation

I’m running a bit behind on some other things we’ve done the last month or two but let’s jump right in to our vacation last week anyway.  Let’s go go go go on an adventure the Honda is up up and away!  If you don’t watch Cat in the Hat knows a lot about that on PBS you won’t understand that last sentence.  Anyway, I uploaded nearly 700 photos from our vacation so I will have to narrow down what I post here and I plan to break things up into a few postings.  Shall we jump into the first two days?

Day 1:

 

We decided to go to some places that we have never been before.  The first stop on the Yankanin Family Vacation was the Velvet Ice Cream plant. 

We had a brief tour from Velvet employees and watched as the workers were packaging sherbet.  They rotate what they make and package each day. 

Gavin and Abby watched the water wheel turn for a bit.  The water used to come from a river long ago but now it comes from the cooling water from refrigeration inside the plant. 

The kids weren’t interested in the museum.  They just wanted to get to the part where we ate ice cream.

 

Gavin went with Buckeye Classic and also Peanut Butter Overload.

As a cake fan, Abby loves Birthday Cake ice cream.

After all the ice cream they ate they were definitely ice cream heads!

We headed south from Velvet to The Works.  It is a place where children participate in hands on activities that include science, art, and history. 

Gav and Abby spent some time tossing the balls into the whirlpool over and over.

The idea with these magnets is to create a face.  Abby and I created a little person and then Gav came and added to it.

Safe fun with electricity!

Every Tuesday The Works hosts a special activity.  The kids took a walk around a ladder truck and sat in the jump seat together.

Gavin was excited to build a car out of K’nex and race it down the ramp.

Abby was fascinated with making the ball float.

While we were out in the area we stopped by the Longaberger building.  The kids and I had never seen it before and we were fascinated. 

The building looks exactly like a basket, obviously.  The bright blue sky was the perfect backdrop.

We had a great first day of vacation.  The fun certainly didn’t stop there!

Day 2:

Gavin had his last swimming lesson on our second day of vacation.  We went to the rec center for his lesson and then headed towards the Olentangy Indian Caverns.  On the way we passed the park that has the Leatherlips statue.  Brandon mentioned how he still hadn’t stopped there to check it out so I suggested we turn around and stop. 

Leatherlips was a Wyandot American Indian Chief.  He was killed west of the Olentangy Indian Caverns.

After taking a couple of pictures we went on our way to the caverns.

Abby refused to stand on the other side of the statue.  She was afraid of it. 

We had some time before our tour so the kids did panning for gems.

Gavin found two arrowheads!

Abby had fun picking out gems but she was also content to pick up dirt off the ground and put it into her basket as well.

We started our trek down into the cave.  Abby had a death grip and wasn’t all that thrilled at first.  The stairs were steep and at certain points wet and slippery so I wasn’t exactly excited about trying to negotiate the stairs with her attached.

B and I sat on “Indian Lover’s Bench” shaped like an arrowhead for a self portrait.

Daddy and the kids in the meeting room of the cave. 

This concludes our first two days of vacation.  Stay tuned, we have five more days of adventure ahead.