I'm I'm I'm I'm Thursday morning started with a little ore camp wild fun. My friend Jill S braided Reese and Quincy's hair. I'm a hair braiding loser and never style my kids with fancy hair, so this was a real treat for them! They looked so cute.
We took camp wild up to Joplin on Thursday for some adventure. We toured the Candy House Chocolate Factory.
We forgot to get a pic before everyone had thrown their hairnets away, but here's part of the group.
Sadly, there was no chocolate river inside the chocolate factory. Our guide was a good Willy Wonka, though.
Here are some of the things the children wrote down that they learned at the factory.
"It smells like sugar in the kitchen."
"Dark chocolate is healthier than milk chocolate or white chocolate, because it has less sugar."
"There are 42 cocoa beans inside 1 pod."
"To make chocolate, they roast the beans, crush them into powder, and add sugar and butter."
"Extra chocolate can be melted and used over and over again so they don't waste it when they do the molds."
"All the chocolates that get dipped go through a metal detector to make sure the machine parts didn't break off and get metal in them."
At the end of the tour, we received a sample of peanut butter and chocolate tiger fudge. It was THE BEST fudge I have ever tasted. Wow!
When in Joplin, Culvers for lunch!
"Welcome to delicious," Soren.
Katie and I made a spontaneous pit stop at the Jopljn Museum Center before going home. This place was cool, and free! There were several mini museum collections combined under one roof. A China doll collection, a famous people from Missouri collection, an historical living collection.
The miniature circus was the favorite bevause if the monkey organ and the funhouse mirror.
Little dollhouse
Big dollhouse ;)
The other half of the museum was a two story mineral museum. Southern Mo and NWA are known for mining. The displays covered everything from fossils to the periodic table of elements, this was the most thorough minerals display we have ever seen. Reese is my little geologist and was especially happy we stopped here.
Following the pattern of the week, sleepy kids on the way home.
They were well rested for Thursday phase 2. A Glow Night at the Splash Pad.
Aaron fired off this glowing pop fly helicopter a hundred times that night for the kids. Bro Shaw and Messick were also super cool dads who invented games to play with the glow sticks and rings in the water and both went home soaked. We were also joined by the Pendletons and Lodens. I couldn't get shy pics to show up once it got really dark, but here are a few I snapped as the sun set.
Poor Q took a fall and suffered some pretty nastily skinned knees and elbows. She's still nursing her injuries 48 hours later. The Lodens came to the rescue with their car first aid kit and hooked her up with an ice pack and hello kitty bandages and her daddy hooked her up with Mc Donald's on the way home.
Even though Q's night ended in misery, if was still a magical night in downtown bentonville with great friends. Long live summer. Long live Camp Wild!
