Taking Maddie and My Nephews to Schoepfle Garden (photo essay)

I had my two nephews stay with me from August 17 - 21.  This allowed my mom and stepdad to get some much-needed R & R (the boys live with them).  I'm not used to having three kids around for any real length of time so this has been a challenge for me.  This challenge is compounded by the fact that:

•  the 9 year-old has Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Abandonment Disorder, and Asthma,
  
• the 8 year old has Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and
  
• the other one (my Maddie) is going through the terrible two's. 

I figured that the best way to keep everyone out of trouble would be to keep everyone VERY busy!

Day One included a trip to Cedar Point.

Day two was a trip to Splash Zone, a really cool swimming pool facility.  

Day three was a trip to Schoepfle Garden, part of the Lorain County Metroparks.  Unlike the first two destinations, I had never been here before.  On the way there, I was barraged by questions from the kids about it, and all I could answer was "I don't know!"



Here are the kids at the entrance:



The first part that we came across was the Woodland area.  There we saw the small pond with lots of fish and frogs. 



Here is one of the frogs:


Next was the big highlight for the little ones: The Children's Garden.  This had a musical theme running and everything was really nice.



 

The kids had lots of fun climbing all over this and going down the slide:







Maddie wanted no part of the slide, but she loves playing with rocks and looking at waterfalls!




Maddie also crossed this bridge many times - she loves bridges:



This was a flute-shaped thing through which the kids could climb:



This was a piano-themed maze. The walkway looked like piano keys and the maze itself was shaped like a grand piano.







This was from the formal garden:




I'll have more from the garden in another photo essay!