Throughout this summer on Thursday nights a new event is taking place at Washington Park, Bandstand Bluegrass. After last night’s performance by the Comet Bluegrass All-Stars, three events have already taken place, with twelve more to go through the beginning of September.

Comet Bluegrass All-Stars

Last night my family and I went to check out it. The awesome thing about this event is it is fun for all ages. The photo below was taken from the children’s playground. So even if you are running around the slides and swings with your little ones, you are still within range of hearing the concert.

Washington Park Crowd

Eli’s BBQ is also available every Bandstand Bluegrass night with $5 pulled pork sandwiches. And Mt. Carmel is on hand as well to provide refreshing beer to those of age. Be sure to bring a lawn chair or blanket as permanent seating is limited.

Eli’s BBQ

We had a blast last night and I’m sure we will be down again soon for another fun-filled evening.

Earlier this week my family and I visited Sunrock Farm for a two hour family tour. We joined several other families on a highlight tour of the most enjoyable areas of the farm. All of the children in attendance were able to milk a goat, bottle feed baby goats, gather eggs, hold a baby chick, pet a pig, and brush a horse. Farmer Frank was our guide for the morning, offering many jokes, as well as tons of information about the animals. The cost of the tour is $10 per person and reservations can be made by calling (859) 781-5502. Sunrock Farm also offers school tours, day camps, traveling petting farm, birthday parties, and much more.

Saturday morning my family and I went to Parky’s Farm, a 100-acre educational farm with live animals, wagon and pony rides, playground, indoor Parky’s Playbarn, and more. Most activities and exploring are included with $3 admission per vehicle, or the $10 annual Hamilton County Parks pass. The pony rides are $3 per child shorter than 48 inches, the wagon ride is $2.50 per person (2 and under are free), and the indoor playbarn is $2.50 per child (2 and under are free).

In addition to the above mentioned activities, our two-year-old love the petting yard with one month old baby goats as well as watering all the vegetables in the large gardens. We spent at least three hours at Parky’s with all the activities available. Since the park is inside of Winton Woods, there are many other activities you could enjoy, and you could easily spend an entire day there.

Last week the newest features of the Smale Riverfront Park were dedicated and opened to the public. The Duke Energy Garden and Women’s Committee Garden combine to more than double the amount of park space available.

Cincinnati’s New Front Porch

My favorite features of the Duke Energy Garden are a dozen family size swings that overlook the river. I sat on one of these swings for a few minutes and watched boats float by. I can already tell that these are going to be very popular.

Front Lawn

The Duke Energy Garden is the eastern most section of the park, just south of Great American Ball Park and to the east of the already popular Main Street Fountains. The pathways through the park are very close to connecting with the Ohio River Trail, which will soon link Smale with Yeatmans Cove, Sawyer Point, and Friendship Park, offering a mile and a half of continuous paved trail.

Duke Energy Garden

Even though the new swings are my favorite part of the park, my son continues to love running through the interactive Main Street Fountains. But since the swings are just around the corner from the fountains, everyone wins!

Main Street Fountains

Construction continues on the west end of the park. The PNC Grow Up Great Adventure Playground, being built next to the Roebling Suspension Bridge, will open in May 2014. And it looks like funding is in place to have the Vine Street Fountain & Stairs, carousel, and carousel building open in time for the 2015 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

A couple of days ago I took my family to the Cincinnati Fire Museum for our first visit. My grandfather was a Cincinnati Firefighter so it’s a bit surprising that I never visited the museum before, at least not to my recollection, even though it has been open for at least as long as I’ve lived in Cincinnati.

Outside

Oldest Surviving Fire Engine

The fire museum is located in a restored 1907 firehouse, the Court Street Firehouse, which sits at 315 West Court Street. The Court Street Firehouse is a registered historic building, listed in the National Register on July 18, 1974.

Hand Pumper

Aurora Pumper

Mt. Washington Fire Department

Hook And Ladder Wagon

There are a few hands on exhibits for children, including an awesome modern fire engine cabin with functioning sirens and flashing lights. I couldn’t figure out how to get the lights to turn on, but leave it to our two-year-old who had them all flashing in no time.

Play Fire Engine

Captain Trey

Over 200 years of firefighting history is on display in the Cincinnati Fire Museum. Exhibits include examples of early leather fire buckets that all citizens were required to own and maintain, a massive 1808 fire drum that was used to sound the alarm in the event of a fire, and the oldest surviving fire engine in Cincinnati.

1927 Ahrens Fire Engine

Helmets

Another awesome family fun activity is taking a slide down the fireman’s pole. Trey had never done this before, so I had to give him a quick demonstration before helping him take a few slides.

Fireman’s Pole

Fireman Trey

We could have easily spent more than the hour we dedicated for this trip. There is a lot of historical information that can take some time to read through. But with low admission prices it is easy to justify a quick trip as well.

Happy Earth Day everyone! We were fortunate to catch the tail end of the Cincinnati Earth Day celebration at Sawyer Point yesterday. In addition to a ton of eco-friendly booths, there were a few animal centered exhibitors.

Freshly Sheared Alpacas

We barely caught the New Richmond Alpaca Farm setup before their three alpacas were loaded into a truck and taken back to the farm. One of the farmers told me that these animals were just sheared two days ago. The farm turns their unique wool into stuffed animals, clothing, and more.

Trey, Goat Handler

Trey had the most fun playing with the animals of Sunrock Farm. He was able to lead a goat around on a leash, hold a baby chick, and pet a really large rabbit. So much fun for kids of all ages!

Friday evening we took Trey to see Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Dragons down at the U.S. Bank Arena. This was my first time in years attending a performance of “The Greatest Show On Earth,” but I’m sure it won’t be the last. Overall Trey really seemed to enjoy the circus, though I think he will like it even more when he has an attention span longer than the typical two-year-old.

Ringling Bros.

All-Access Preshow

We arrived nearly an hour before the show was set to start and spent time walking around the merchandise filled concourses and eventually found our way on the circus floor for the all-access preshow. Here families can participate in interactive experiences such as learning juggling and balancing skills, get performer autographs, see one of Ringling Bros. majestic Asian elephant’s paint a one-of-a-kind masterpiece and meet the Ringling Bros. Clowns.

Live Orchestra Setup

My favorite acts from the two hours or so of entertainment were definitely the Alexander Lacey, the Big Cats Trainer and Presenter, as well as the Torres Family, who performs with 8 motorcycles in a 16-foot steel sphere, where speeds can reach up to 65 mph! I was also impressed to see that the entire performance is choreographed along with a live orchestra and not with music from a tape.

Big Cat Presentation

Motorcycle Globe Of Steel

I’m not sure why the show is called “Dragons” as there is very little to do with dragons. A large robotic dragon does peak its head out of the curtain just before intermission and it is sent flying around the circus floor at the end of the night, but that is the only real dragon aspects of the show. If I had to add any other complaints about the show it was that the ringmaster was often hard to hear, but that could just be due to our ancient arena’s poor acoustics. Even without fully understanding his introductions of the acts, it was easy to quickly decipher what was going to happen in each.

Unleashed Dragon

Typically the day before the circus opens up for performances, there is an animal walk from where the circus trains are parked to the arena. This year the train arrived in the middle of the night after being delayed on its route between tour stops. My wife remembers going to see the same event as a child and really wanted to take our son. Once we found out it was canceled for this year we thought of other ideas to get closer to the animals. Fortunately we had a nice bit of luck last night as we were driving home from the west side of town and spotted a few of the elephants being loaded on the train.

Circus Elephant

So Close

Walking By

Rail Cars

Three Elephants

Back Her In

This was very cool to see but I hope we can get the full animal parade next time the circus comes to town.

Despite the frigid temperatures over the weekend, the Kentucky-Ohio Polar Plunge went on as scheduled. This event benefits the Special Olympics programs in both Kentucky and Ohio. Since the event became a joint fundraiser in 2005, the Plunge has raised more than $670,000 for programs on both sides of the Ohio River. This year they raised over $140,000!

As they’ve done many years in the past, a couple of Kim’s brothers participated in the plunge. This year they were part of the Frosted Fruit Loops team for Hamilton County Special Olympics. We went down to Joe’s Crab Shack to watch them jump into the pool of water that was actually frozen earlier in the morning. Brrrr.

Plunge Site

Keep It Classy

Another “Classy” Group

Ready To Jump

Frosted Fruit Loops

More Fruit Loops

My family and I hadn’t traveled together for an overnight stay since our trip to San Francisco in September and we needed a quick getaway. So we made plans to spend a full day this past weekend in Columbus with an overnight stay at the Westin downtown (booked on Priceline.com). Among the stops on our trip was the Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark. Sure they have a onsite hotel that we could have stayed in, but after reading some nasty reviews of their accommodations, we decided to stay elsewhere. Besides, even after paying the $21.95 per person for waterpark entry after 4pm and just under $80 for the Westin, we were still saving money compared to the cheapest package I could find on the Fort Rapids website.

Due to our busy day, we didn’t actually get to Fort Rapids until around 7pm and with a 9pm closing time we didn’t have a ton of time. However, I felt that our two hours there was enough for our group. My wife took our two-year-old to the kiddie korral children’s activity area and the rascal roundup 40-foot interactive play structure. I took my twelve-year-old brother-in-law through the cowboy creek lazy river and onto all four of their water slides two times each. It seemed that most of the crowd really thinned out during the duration of our visit.

This was my first visit to one of these large scale indoor waterparks, so I don’t have much to compare it to in that regard. The water was definitely highly chlorinated and therefore seemed extremely clean. We did encounter one of the water slides in the rascal roundup was closed, but other than that all the attractions seemed to be well maintained. The air temperature is warm and the water is a nice cool temperature. We had a good time and wouldn’t hesitate to go back again when in the area on a cold winter day.

Over the weekend we took Trey to the Behringer-Crawford Museum for their annual Holiday Toy Trains display. I had never heard of this museum in Devou Park before reading about it on Family Friendly Cincinnati.

Permanent Train Display

Before we could make it upstairs to the temporary Holiday Toy Trains display we were fascinated with a model of old Covington complete with a few model trains of its own. There are a couple of portholes that you can see in the picture above, where children can climb into and get a look of the city from inside.

Trains

The first floor is dedicated to trains with a play area for kids and plenty of information and history for the older children and adults.

Street Car

The holiday toy trains are in a separate space on the third floor. This display wasn’t as large as the one in the Cincinnati Museum Center, but this one was way more interactive. Trey spent a solid fifteen minutes running along the display case pressing various buttons to see what would happen inside the display.

Holiday Toy Trains

The second floor is full of information on the early automobile era. While the third floor contained all sorts of history on river transportation. And the very small fourth floor has information on the area’s aviation history. Throughout the museum there is all kinds of historical artifacts. I found this case filled with brewing history that was fun for me to look at for a few minutes.

Beer History

We easily could have spent even more time at the Behringer-Craword Museum than the hour and half we were there. There is so much to see that an entire afternoon could be easy to fill.