In partnership with
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🎉 The Naperville FunTimes
Your Weekly Family Fun Guide
Issue #29 • Friday, September 25, 2026
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Happy Friday, Naperville families! 🍺
Fall showed up right on schedule this week — cooler mornings, that low gold light by 6, the whole thing. The pumpkin patch and petting zoo in Bolingbrook just opened for the season, there’s a free nature center in North Aurora with a wildlife room most people have never heard of, and if the weather turns on you, there’s a mini golf course with a cave in it. Pizza’s free for the kids Sunday, so dinner’s handled too.
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📅 This Week’s Top 3 Family Picks
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Johansen Farms — A Pumpkin Patch, a Children’s Zoo & a Corn Maze, All Open Now 🌟
This is the real deal, not a parking-lot pop-up: a working farm with a children’s zoo full of goats, sheep, and rabbits you can actually get close to, plus hayrides, a train ride, a corn maze, air slides and inflatables, all included in one admission. Weekends bring pony rides too. If you just want to wander the pumpkin patch and open market for a free-choice pumpkin without paying for the zoo, that part costs nothing and there’s free parking right at the gate. Wear shoes you don’t mind getting muddy — this is a farm, not a manicured lawn.
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Red Oak Nature Center — Turtles, Snakes & Six Free Trails Along the Fox River 🐢
Forty acres of forest along the Fox River with six short, wood-chipped trails that loop back to the parking lot — nobody’s getting lost, and nobody’s carrying a tired four-year-old a mile back to the car. Inside, the Wildlife Room has live turtles, snakes, frogs and salamanders in a 500-gallon setup kids can watch for a genuinely long time, and the front desk hands out free nature exploration bags with binoculars and ID cards for whatever you find on the trail. It’s the kind of low-key stop that fills an hour perfectly without anyone needing tickets, a schedule, or a nap plan.
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Lost Mountain Adventure Golf — Eighteen Holes Past Waterfalls and a Cave ⛳️
This is the mini golf course that actually earns the word “adventure” — the eighteen holes wind through fake rock formations, past a working waterfall, and straight through a small cave tunnel that every kid under ten insists on going through twice. It’s outdoors and lit well into the evening, so it’s a solid after-dinner outing once the heat of the day is gone. Replays are cheap if the littlest one loses interest at hole twelve and just wants to start over on the easy holes near the entrance.
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Elon's new company is private. These 3 tickers aren't.
The next Apple may already exist. Insider sources say Elon has spent two years building a secret device inside Tesla's facilities — one he claims will be "10x bigger than the largest product in history."
There's just one problem: the company is private, and unless you know Elon personally, you can't buy a single share. That was true until Guardian's research team found three public ticker symbols sitting in the launch supply chain.
Click here to see all 3 tickers, free of charge.
You won't hear these names on CNBC — Wall Street hasn't published a word on the connection. But when the launch hits September 21, that quiet ends.
Some are already calling this the biggest opportunity since AI. For anyone who missed Apple before the iPhone, this may be a second look at that kind of setup.
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🍽️ Kids Eat Free This Week!
The first one lands this Sunday downtown. The second is a Tuesday sports-bar deal worth remembering all fall. Adult purchase required at both.
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The pumpkin patches are all open now and the good ones fill up by mid-October, so this is actually an early weekend if you want to beat the lines. Wear a real jacket in the morning and you’ll be peeling it off by noon — that’s just how this week is shaping up. Pick one thing off this list and go be outside while it still feels good to.
See you out there,
The Naperville FunTimes Team 🧡
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