This summer for us has been all about spending time as a family. We have loved going hiking, exploring all the parks we have around here and taking some day trips. I’m SO excited that my kids are finally at the age where they can handle a whole day out and it doesn’t take an entire van load of stuff to make it happen. For the most part, we can go places and *gasp* even leave the stroller in the van!!!!
We recently decided to head out and explore a little bit of Columbus, since we are only 1 hour away. I had a list of places to go, and we only managed to hit up a few of them, but we still had a blast!
We left fairly early in the morning and rolled into Cbus around 10am. We first decided to explore the German Village and hit up The Book Loft! The German Village was cute and quaint with lots of little cafes and stores, and beautiful flowers and fauna growing in front of most houses and business. It really was charming and cute, but that was completely lost on my children who weren’t huge fans of the walking and grew bored quickly. I guess you can’t win them all!
The Book Loft was pretty incredible, although nearly a disaster with kids! The Book Loft is an older home converted into a bookstore. It’s huge, with 37 “rooms” and it feels like getting lost inside a massive maze of books.
I was surprised that they don’t sell many used books, so the prices were still rather high for the books, but it still gave me so much fun browsing books and getting ideas to request from the library!
The kids LOVED it, too. They loved pulling books off the shelves, running around corners and getting lost in the maze and shouting at the top of their lungs, which I’m sure all the other patrons loved.
We had to leave The Book Loft sooner than I would have liked, but my kids were about to destroy the place, so it only made logical sense. I would love to go back one day without my little ones in tow!
The next stop was one of the cute little bakeries in the German Village. We got a Pain au Chocolat to share, and it was such a cute little shop! I wish I could remember the name of it, but I apparently didn’t take any pictures of the sign!
This girl loves her Daddy (and also insists on picking her own outfits)
Next, we drove to the Anthony Thomas Candy Shoppes, only to find that we had gone to the wrong place. Their are a number of Anthony Thomas Candy Shoppes, and we wanted the one that had the factory tour. Since we were getting close to lunch time and at the wrong location, we decided to just stop at a food truck for lunch. We ate our picnic under a tree and then went on to the REAL Anthony Thomas Candy Shoppes factory.
This was by far our FAVORITE part of our day in Columbus.
The admission for the tour was $1 per child and $2 per adult…so we paid $5 total for an hour long tour. They have a big glass enclosed walkway up above the factory floor, and we walked along it in a guided tour. Our tour guide was fantastic and watching them make the chocolates was SO COOL! They had a no photos policy during the tour because they work with some big brands to package their chocolates…it was cool to see them working on Christmas chocolates in July! We loved hearing about the behind the scenes and learning about the integrity of the company. The kids were so over it and didn’t understand anything that was happening, but it would be GREAT for any school aged child! Theo and I loved it!
At the end of our tour, they gave us a buckeye and then we got to spend our $5 tickets towards chocolate in the gift shop!
The gift shop itself was so fun and we loved looking around at all the different creative chocolates they have! This one had girl/boy lollipops and we were still waiting to find out what we were having, so I had to take a picture (with some chocolate in my mouth!)
They also manufacture this massive buckeye, which they have never sold commercially. They have only donated or sold to auctions or special functions (Ohio State stuff). Sooooo, who wants to be the first commercial buyer of this 235 pd buckeye for $3500?
You guys…I HIGHLY recommend this place! It was so much fun for all ages!
The kids were starting to get tired and on the brink of meltdowns, and since it was nearing 2pm, we decided to just fit in one more stop that would be enjoyable to them. Since they love being outdoors and it was a HOT day, we decided to head downtown and explore The Scioto Mile, a park that is right on the river. They have a massive splashed and the kids LOVED it. It was a really fun, free place to stop- but I will say that there was A LOT of people there. Still, the kids loved it and we had a blast. After about 40. minutes there, we packed up and headed back to Dayton!
What a fun day in Columbus, Ohio! We will be doing that again!
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