Applejack Festival 2009 and Applejack Adventure

Fall is my absolute favorite season here in Nebraska. Things start to really cool off, colors are brilliant, and I am all about cuddling up with hot cocoa around our wood-burning fireplace. Shut me in a cottage for a full year of fall and I'd be happy! The small-town Nebraska City Applejack Festival is the start of the apple season, and what better way to celebrate the Fall and the founder of Arbor Day than heading up for some Carmel apples?! You can see last years short post here.
This year some friends and I met there, and we took the kiddos to an outdoor hike, art walk, and natural materials play center called Tree Adventure. What a GEM! This place is only $15 for a yearly pass for an individual, and since one-day admission is $6.50, I opted for the pass! I will be taking my kiddos back here a LOT during the next year! (Since they are both 2 & under, we didn't have to get the family pass, which was $27.00 for 2 adults & all children). You start on a path through these beautiful trees:

here is the first natural materials sculpture-- a woven tunnel for little ones to run through. It looks as if it is only held up by sticks. It was beautiful!

Here is a small area of the play place. The foreground shows you a table with stump seats that you can make art with. Like this. The background is an area with different sized blocks for the babies and toddlers to play in. It looks deceiving from my pictures, but this play area is SO big, complete with a running water sculpture that you can learn how leaves travel with water systems, a small-scale music amphitheatre area, a fort building section with stumps, long & short logs, fallen branches, etc.

and the finale: A HUGE natural play tree-house full of colored scarves. People, this is every Waldorf & Natural Play persons dream! It is like a large scale fairy/gnome tree house that are becoming so popular. It is beautifully made, and the kids loved it! There were a few tears when we had to go!

If you are local, drive the hour up to Nebraska City to check out this gem! Open year round and totally worth it!

Comments

Laryssa Herbert said…

What a fun place to play!

Thanks for entering the contest at Keeper of the Home for my artwork!

Thank you for all your sweet compliments. :-)

I'll be having new designs coming out for fall and for Christmas so check back often!

September 30, 2009 at 10:59 AM

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