Ice Cream!

Every summer, we kick off Summer break by attending the Velvet Ice Cream company's ice cream festival in Utica, Ohio. This year we attended on Sunday. Once again, we arrived around 10 am (after picking up my sister to go with us) and there was no line to get in! 

Due to construction at the Velvet plant, some of the activities were located in different areas. One of those were the pony rides. These were located just as you entered the grounds. 

Rebecca loves to ride the ponies. For the first time ever, Jacob decided to ride one this year. Ben wanted to and then decided at the last minute that he did NOT want to! 
 
After the pony rides, we walked around and looked at the vendors and the kids got to do a craft.

Then we went and got ice cream-- Benjamin got chocolate, Rebecca and Jacob both got cookie dough ice cream,my sister got mint chocolate chip, Bill got Buckeye classic and I tried one of their new flavors-- Banana cream pie! Oh it was SO GOOD! 

While we were eating our ice cream, we sat and watched the Columbus Zoo show off some of their animals in their traveling exhibit.

We saw an owl, a fox, a penguin, a joey, a bearcat and a sloth. I thought the sloth was really cool, but apparently they really stink! The kids really enjoyed watching the animals. 

After that was over, we walked over and looked at all the cars that were in the annual car show...well I should say Bill looked that cars, my sister and I discussed which car colors were the best and the kids looked at the ducks in the pond! Priorities, right? 

After that, we decided to get some lunch for the kids and Bill. The kids had pizza and kool-aid boxes and Bill had a coney dog. I was waiting to get my "lunch" before we left. It was starting to get crowded and hot outside so we decided to leave around 1pm. As we were heading out, I got each of the kids a snow cone and I got myself my "lunch"-- a funnel cake! So yummy! 

Overall, it was a lovely morning and early afternoon and was a great way to kick off Summer break!