Groupon Adventure Day - Huber Orchard Family Fun Park

I love using Groupon to find deals on food and activities that we can use as a family.  Sometimes they are really good deals and sometimes they don't work out as well for us (example: we brought a groupon and then find out the place has gone out of business in the location we want and have to go across town to use the groupon).

Before the school year ended I bought a Groupon for Huber Orchard and Winery.  The Groupon was a family deal and I think it was to get business for the family fun park they have on their property.  I have been to Huber before but that was strictly with friends to visit the winery and the grounds.  It was an absolutely beautiful orchard and vineyard and I definitely wanted to go back so when I saw this groupon I thought it was a great opportunity to go visit the orchard and farm market with the kids.  My only concern is that Huber is about 2 hours and 15 minutes away from our house and that's a long drive for what could be a short amount of time.  Not to mention the fact that I had not even been aware of the fact they had a family fun park on their property so it could be a total bust.

Paul was pretty up front with me saying that didn't seem like the way he wanted to spend his weekends off work and I completely understood that.  I called my mom and she said it sounded like something fun and we could go over the summer during my break.  So I went ahead and bought the groupon.

The groupon deal was $29 and included a large pizza, 4 sodas, 4 scoops of ice cream, an admission for 4 into the family fun park, 2 bags of coal to mine, and a loaf of bread to take home.

My summer filled up pretty quickly and before I knew it I was down to only 2 days left off work and the groupon expires on July 28th so mom and I decided to go on Monday.  The problem... the weather was not the best.  It was suppose to storm until 11 and then clear up.  So we left Indy around 9 am hoping to drive through the rain and have nice weather at the park.

The trip down went really smoothly and we went ahead and ate our pizza as soon as we got to Huber so we could let the kids play for a few hours before we ate our ice cream.

The pizza was pretty good but small.  Definitely would need something else to go with it but we had packed sides for the kids so that helped fill them up.

In order to get to the Family Fun Park we had to drive a bit farther down the road so we loaded the kids up and found our next destination.  I can tell you my initial thoughts were of major disappointment.  First it had started drizzling rain and second, we were the only people at the place.  It looked deserted, run down, and not something that would entertain the kids for 5 minutes let alone 2 hours.

The place typically charges $6 per person to enter, let me tell you it is not worth $6 to enter.  If you have a groupon deal or another coupon I think it would be.  But to just pay to enter this place seems a bit extreme.

They did have a cute petting zoo area and tons of different animals you could pet and feed.  Mom took Sam over to feed a baby cow but again, it was raining so the kids weren't having much of it.  Again, if it hadn't been raining it probably would have been enjoyable, however we were ready to move on and get out of the rain.

They had little tractor ride on toys for the kids.  They said that Sam and Ally would be able to ride them so I bought 4 tickets ($1 each) so the kids could each have 2 rides a piece.  However, Ally would not have been able to do this at all.  Sam was struggling with the strength it took to keep that pedal down and it wasn't one that I could have gone along next to her to keep her in line or keep her secure to the seat.

By the time Sam started his second ride it had started pouring!  Put a damper on his enjoyment in the activity!

Sam was soaked and I was soaked from having to push his little tractor back under the shelter when his time ran out.  We decided to go wait out the rain in the little building that held the miniature golf course.  This was probably one of the oldest and smallest mini golf courses ever.  And they had zero golf sticks for little kids.  Not well designed for young kids.  However, it served its purpose to keep them entertained while we figured out if we were going to try to stick out the rain and go see more or just pack up and head back up to get our ice cream.  At this point I was completely bummed out and thought the groupon was a total bust.  I was disappointed we drove so far away for a place that had so little for kids to do.

Finally the rain stopped and we were in the same building that had the tractor train ride.  All the employees of the park are just sitting on the tractor train hanging out.  We had to walk up and ask after the rain stopped if they were going to take it out for rides.  They looked at us like we were such an inconvenience to them and they said, do you really want to go for a ride?  My mom and I were very sure that we did want to take the kids for a ride so they got it set up so we could go.  At this time after we were in our little train car, another car pulled into the parking lot.  It appeared since the rain stopped others were coming out as well.  So we got one other family to ride along with us since I think the employees only wanted to be bothered taking us out once.

Notice how soaked Sam and I were!  Thankfully I brought clothes for Sam to change in to after we were out of the family fun park, but I was cold and wet for the rest of the day!

The kids had no idea how disappointed mom and I were up to this point.  They were extremely excited for the tractor ride.  I will say the tractor ride really changed mine and moms mood as well.  Even though in the beginning the driver didn't want to take us out, he did an excellent job telling us what were going past and making it a very entertaining ride for the kids and the adults.  Definitely the highlight of our trip and Sam and Ally really enjoyed it.

Ally was a bit scared to begin with:

But she started to warm up to the ride the longer we were on it.  However she does still keep a hand on Grandma at all times just in case.

Sam of course loved every second and wanted to ride it again once we got back to the starting point.

With the rain having stopped we went ahead and used the last of the tractor ride tokens.  Sam enjoyed it much more with no rain and I wish I would have waited on all his tokens.

After the tractor ride we went ahead and did the coal mining station.  It was definitely a gimmicky type of deal but it was the first that kids had ever participated in something like it so it kept them entertained.  Probably only lasted about 10 minutes of entertainment but it was something fun for them to do.

The kids were given bags of sand when we got to the park.  They put those bags into the bins and shake all the water off to pick out their rocks.  A neat little idea but not really worth a 2 hour drive for this part.  The kids might disagree with me on that though.

Ally was so proud of her bag of rocks :)  Sam wanted to look at them the whole car ride home as well.  Mom and I however were tired and wet from the rain so we were ready to head back up to the orchard and farm market to get our ice cream and shop for a bit.

Before we left we got a picture of the random school bus in front of the family fun park.

The ice cream was very good and the serving sizes were huge.  The kids loved their vanilla and mom and I went with peach.

After ice cream we went to the farm market to pick up our loaf of bread (random addition to this groupon honestly...) and get some fresh fruits and veggies.  The farm market and orchard part of Huber is amazing.  After our shopping we put the kids in the car and I ran in to buy a bottle of wine (I was at a winery... I had to get 1!) and then in to the cheese shop to pick up some of their cheese.

We spent from about 11:30 to 4:00 at Huber and the kids were exhausted.  They fell asleep at about 4:20 and we were home by 6:30.

My final thoughts... It was a good deal for $29.  If we lived close I could definitely see doing it again (on a sunny day only!!).  Would I purchase again?  Most likely I would not.  While the kids enjoyed it and I think if it wasn't raining it would have been fun, it wasn't worth the almost 5 hours we spent in the car that day.  It was a fun adventure for a day but we have tried it and will try to find an orchard with a similar feel closer to home for next time!

Our baby girl is 2!!

It is hard to believe that this little girl has been in our family for 2 years now!!  She is definitely a toddler now and no longer a baby and her personality is definitely making itself known into our family.

For her birthday we spent the morning making breakfast cupcakes (muffins) and then went to the zoo. After naps we went to Pizza King for dinner (they absolutely love watching the train go past their booth) and then opened her presents at home, had cupcakes, and played outside in her new sand and water table.

Paul and I always make it a point to take the day off for the kids birthdays.  We love being at home and making them know it's their birthday all day long.  We only have a few years until they are in school and that isn't an option so we want to take the time off while they are young.  It is nice because for Ally's birthday it falls during the summer so I am already off work.

We were in a heat wave this year for Ally's birthday week.  We wanted to get to the zoo but knew we needed to get there early because it was suppose to be in the 100s with the heat index.  So we left around 9:30 am and there was hardly any at the zoo due to the time and the heat.  It actually worked out perfectly for us.

The one spot at the zoo we always have to hit is the train.  Hopefully the zoo never stops running their train because our kids would be so disappointed!!  We decided to hit the plains first before the temps got up to high because (as the plains would imply) there is very little shade and the most walking involved.  After the plains we would exit right by the train.

Sam wanted to race a cheetah.  I'm pretty sure the cheetah finished before he even left the starting line.  The animals were incredibly active all morning.  I am not sure if it was because of the time or the heat but all of them were up close to their fencing and moving around.  We even saw an elephant in the water playing, fully submerged and only coming up every few seconds.  We never see the elephants actually in the water!

The kids were so excited to ride and on the entire train there were literally only 2 other families.  You can see all the empty seats in the pictures below!!  Anytime we ask Sam what his favorite part of the zoo is he will answer the choo choo.  He likes the animals and all, but the train is the selling point!

 

After the train ride the kids were pretty much sweating, hot, and tired.  So we decided to do the forests and the oceans and call it a day.

 After the zoo we went home to eat lunch and put the kids down for naps.  They slept for several hours due to the heat from the zoo and all the exercise.  Once they woke up we met my mom at Pizza King for Ally's birthday dinner.  They absolutely love that place.  As much as it seems it would be the place to go for Sam's birthday (and believe me we always do) Ally really loves it as well.

They pretty much stayed this way for most of the meal.  Waiting for the train to come by and watching it deliver drinks to the other tables.  After dinner mom came back to our house to watch Ally open up her presents from us.  Paul and I got her (and Sam) and sand/water table that has an umbrella (our house has literally no shade for most of the day and it can be way to hot for them outside so the umbrella was a must!), a my little pony wedding castle (with ponies and accessories), a bride and groom big pony, and then some little party favors.  She absolutely loves these things that are sticky and in the shapes of salamanders.  We got her some more of those and some in the shape of frogs.  Then we got her a cupcake notebook with a giant pen.  All toys were a hit this year except maybe the larger sized my little ponies.  Just because she got so many other great toys those have been played with the least amount of time.

 Ally helping Paul put together her sand and water table.

Admiring her new toy before opening up the rest of her presents.

Having Ally open her presents from us on her birthday was a much needed activity.  He had a hard time realizing that all the presents were for Ally that day.  And while he could play with them and they would be at our house, she was the one who got to open everything and have first pick with what to play with.  It was a bit overwhelming for him at first (but that was partly because we didn't do presents until right before bedtime and he had already had an extremely busy day) but it really paid off on Saturday during her present because he just sat back and watched her open everything at her birthday party.

 After presents we sang happy birthday to Ally.  Again, because Ally had her birthday cupcakes and Sam realized he could help her blow out the candle but it wasn't his birthday, this round of singing to Ally went really smoothly.  He sat by and sang to her and then helped her blow out the candle after giving her an opportunity to do it herself first.

After eating the delicious cupcakes it was time to finally go outside and play in the new table.  Because it was already 8:00 (normal bedtime) we just filled it up with water and let them play for about 45 minutes.  They had a blast and were definitely not ready to go to bed.  Overall it was an awesome day spent as a family and celebrating the joy that little Allyson Elisabeth has brought into our lives.  I am always thankful for the blessings that God has brought to our family with our beautiful children!