Zoo Time

We met up with Meg, Lilly, and Zach at the zoo this summer. It was a super hot day, but we had a good time. The kids were interested in things in the following order:

1. Riding the rides (our zoo has a train, a merry-go-round, a ride where you sit in a log boat and ride down a lazy river, and a sky safari where you ride in a chairlift over the Africa section of the zoo).
2. Eating overpriced zoo snacks like ice cream that cost about $5 a cone.
3. Seeing actual animals.

Here are some pictures (none of any animals, you'll notice, since even though we were at the Zoo, those were not as interesting as the rides and snacks).

All 4 kids at the entrance of the zoo:

Riding the train:

Everyone in a little treehouse:

Meg, Lilly and Zach on the chairlift ride (if you look carefully you will see that Meg is barefoot. They don't let you wear flip flops on this ride in case they fall to the ground. She had to leave them at the bottom and get them when the ride was done):

The only pictures that include an animal. Never mind that it is a statue of a turtle - it still counts.

Princess Tea Party

In addition to the Princess Tea Party we attended at the library, Becca also went to one at our Community Center. There were about 10 little girls there who were all dressed up. The girls got to decorate paper crowns, play a game similar to hot potato but with passing a magic wand until the music stopped, put a paper kiss on a frog poster, and decorate cookies. She had lots of fun!

Summer Fun at the Library

Our library has a great summer reading program for kids of all ages. In addition to reading books to earn prizes, they have a lot of activities that kids can take part in. So far this summer we have seen a magic show, taken a class about 3D printing, made fairy houses, went to an open art session (they put out tons of materials and kids can make whatever they want), met Pete the Cat from those books, and attended a princess tea party.

Here are some pictures of the kids at some of these events (no picture of Pete the Cat since Becca was kind of scared of him).

All of the princesses did a parade around the library so everyone could see their beautiful costumes:

Open art:

Becca making her fairy house (Samuel sat this one out. He said it was too girly for him):

I love our library. They provide all of these great (and free!) activities that we have certainly enjoyed this summer. 

Yes Day

A few years ago we first read this book at our house:

It's all about a boy who gets one day a year where all of his requests are answered with "yes". Every time we read the book, the kids ask when they can have a Yes Day here. One day a few weeks ago we had our own Yes Day. Before we started the day, I made sure they understood Yes Day did not mean they could just ask for me to buy them tons of toys and then expect the answer to be yes. It wasn't Greedy Day.

Here are some of the things they asked (I said yes to all of these):

Can we eat dinner for breakfast (including chocolate milk)? Yes. Notice that Becca is eating macaroni and cheese at 6:00 am. Samuel requested a hot dog. For some reason I didn't get a picture of that.

Can we NOT make our beds? Yes.

Can we make our own pizza for lunch? Yes.

Can we eat our lunch UNDER the table? Yes.

Can we go to the playground? Yes.

After the playground, can we go get ice cream? Yes.

Can we stay up really late and watch a movie? Yes.

Was it a fun day? Yes.

Overnight at the Tin Caps

The Tin Caps are Fort Wayne's local baseball team. Samuel's cub scout group had the opportunity to watch a game and then sleep overnight on the field. Added bonus: it was Star Wars night at the game, so there were people walking around in costumes, Star Wars music being played, trivia questions, etc...

Here are some pictures with Johnny (the team mascot) in Star Wars attire, and with other Star Wars characters:

The game itself didn't get over until 10:00. Then there was a fireworks show. Then the kids could run the bases if they wanted (Samuel did not), and then we were allowed to set up our tents on the field. By this time it was 11:30 at night. Keep in mind that Samuel normally goes to bed at 7:30. Despite being up so far past his bedtime, he did a great job with the tent, basically setting it up all by himself.

After all of the tents were set up, they showed a movie (Monsters University) on the big screen. We made it to almost the end of the movie and fell asleep around 1:00. Everyone had to be up and off the field the next morning at 7:00, so it was a short night (even shorter for some of the kids who were still running around playing tag and screaming at 1:00 am. We were so tired we slept through that noise.)

All in all, I think he had a lot of fun. I can still remember when I was in Girl Scouts how we got to sleep overnight in the Boston Museum of Science, so I hope he has fond memories of this night for a long time!

Rocket Launching

I have not posted anything on our blog in months. Now that it's summer here, I am going to try to get caught up. Back in April, Samuel's cub scout group launched rockets one night. He LOVED this activity. Here are some pictures: