Just Barely

It was a big weekend for the Dandelion! He is finally tall enough to do all the rides at StoryLand and most of the rides at Attitash (potty training kept him off the waterslides, and you have to be 4 years old to rock climb). Fortunately they only measure in shoes or he would not have reached a whopping 36 1/2" LOL!

He was so excited to bounce on the EuroBungy Trampoline, fly down the Alpine Slide, ride the Polar Coaster (twice) and get drenched on the water rides. He was not as thrilled to wait in the lines, but now that he can go on some rides I think he is starting to understand why people wait in lines (at least I really hope he is!)


The Tumbleweed also reached new heights this weekend making it to the top of the rock wall (although she is still eagerly anticipating her 6th birthday so she can climb the rock wall at the Y).


She also did her first back flip (actually 8 - she counted!) on the EuroBungy Trampoline. After watching that, I must confess that I am starting to develop new gymnastics fears. I never could understand all the flinching parents who couldn't watch their kids in the gym, but it is a bit more difficult to watch her attempt something new than it was for me attempting tricks myself or coaching other people's kids. Very strange!

It was a jam-packed couple of days, but we managed to do a lot of fun stuff and even find a few letterboxes!

Indoor Fishing?

For each of their birthdays, the kids received fishing poles from Nana & Papa. During a recent visit to my grandma's house on the lake, the kids tested them out.


However, they didn't catch anything. Because as my dad always says, "there are no fish in Canandaigua Lake". Or perhaps they needed to work on their technique. We decided to make a trip to the Bass Pro Shop this weekend and they were able to do just that.



The Bass Pro Shop was a pretty cool place, with live fish and turtles in various aquariums. This particular day they were also running their "Family Summer Camp", which meant there was a craft, a presentation to learn more about fishing and a boat to practice casting. And it was all free! The kids really enjoyed it.

Stroller-free?

Today we were off to Davis Farmland with our MOMS Club friends. My big debate as we were getting ready to go was if I should bring the stroller or let the Dandelion walk. I decided to leave the stroller in the car and it went just fine!

Unlike the last time we went we barely saw the animals. I felt a little bad skipping them initially, but the kids were having so much fun at the water park and on the playground it didn't make sense to pull them away.


The Dandelion's favorite attraction was definitely the "Goat Carts", where he was content to pedal around the track over & over for a good hour & a half (divided into three separate visits). He also loved the water park and "painting" one of the playground houses with water.


The Tumbleweed probably would have been content to stay in the waterpark all day (it was really hot!), especially the new bubble area! She also enjoyed the playground and couldn't wait to paint her own face on her way out.

I am looking forward to taking them back again soon!

Monte's Final Visit: A Peek into our Weekend

Since the school year is drawing to a close (the Tumbleweed's last day is in 6 weeks!), I knew when Monte Bear came home with the Tumbleweed that it would probably be his last visit with us. Well, we showed Monte the time of his life this weekend!

On Saturday morning we were up early and headed to the UMass Memorial Teddy Bear Clinic. I had seen this advertised and thought it sounded like fun - and even more fun now that we had a special visitor. While at the clinic, Monte (and Popple) got weighed & measured, had their blood pressure taken, learned about x-rays and anesthesia, and got glasses. The big excitement, though, was when they got real casts - Monte on his arm and Popple on his horn. I definitely think we will head to the Teddy Bear Clinic again next year!

In the afternoon we took Monte to the Boston Museum of Science, where he learned about dinosaurs, playground science and about his relatives the brown bear. He had to stay in the car during dinner, but I think he needed a nap anyway.

On Sunday, Monte and the Tumbleweed got to learn about honeybees. They were both very brave going right up to the hives and checking out the bees. Monte sure had a lot to tell the "Bumblebee" class at school including the name of the queen bee, Pink, and how it is important to back away slowly if you are scared instead of running away. Thanks to Michele for letting us come over!

In the afternoon, Monte got to watch the Tumbleweed learn how to ride her bike without training wheels! Even I didn't get to witness that first hand. Then it was out to play on the swingset and help me in the garden before dinner.

Monday morning it was time to get ready to go back to school, but not before comforting the Tumbleweed at the doctor to get her booster shots (she had her physical a couple weeks back, but had strep and couldn't get her shots). Then it was off to school for the two of them, where Monte was greeted by a look of surprise from all of the teachers when they saw his cast. The Tumbleweed was once again very excited to show & tell in front of the class.

We will miss you Monte!

On Two Wheels

The Eagle gave me a little break this afternoon and took the kids over to the track in Auburn (near Rocketland) to ride bikes. I had some nice peace & quiet to spend in the yard cleaning up the garden beds and moving plants around, and he and the kids had fun in the sun.

The trip was prompted by the fact that the Dandelion just got his first bike - a Lightning McQueen 12" with training wheels. He was having a hard time riding in our driveway, with all of the little bumps and depressions, so the Eagle wanted to take him somewhere flat. He took the Tumbleweed and her bike for "No Training Wheels, Lesson #3" (sidenote: a few weeks back I posted about Lesson #1 and about a week after that she had gone to the track for lesson #2, where she perfected her balance and got her pedals back).

The Dandelion had a blast on his bike, which fits him quite nicely.

But the big surprise of the day was the Tumbleweed learning to ride without training wheels. She made enormous progress from her previous lessons and was quickly able to ride all by herself! I could tell when he walked in the door that the Eagle was very proud of her, and I am too :)

I heard that there was a little disappointment that the ice cream truck had left before they made it there, but otherwise everyone was quite excited about the afternoon. I am sure there will be many more trips to the track this summer!

Museum of Science

It had been a while since we had been to the Boston Museum of Science - nearly four years [gasp!] - but we finally had the opportunity to take the kids in. With our new membership to the Worcester Ecotarium, we get in free at the Museum of Science. What a great deal! It is so nice to be able to go for a few hours and not feel pressured to "get our money's worth" and stay a whole day.

Since it had been a while, we had lots to explore. We started off with some of the live animals and then made our way to the dinosaur exhibit. The kids enjoyed looking at the large models and skeletons, especially the Dandelion (and the Eagle).



After the dinosaurs, we went up the Science in the Park exhibit, because I recall that being one of the Tumbleweed's favorites when she was little. How could you go wrong with teeter totters and swings? The kids had fun exploring, but the Tumbleweed found her favorite spot racing kids on the track. I particularly liked the fact that she was in a skirt and wearing party beads - and taking the racing very seriously!



We will definitely be making the trip back to see more of the museum, since the kids were so engaged we didn't make it to some of the other parts of museum that we thought they would like.


A couple flashback photos from the Museum of Science...


October 2005 - Star Wars Exhibit


August 2006 - The Tumbleweed loves the ball mazes in the Discovery Center

Two Little Skiers

The Dandelion had his first chance to try skiing this weekend during our trip up to Attitash. We got him a 1 hour ski rental, and he had a blast having the Eagle run him up the hill (the Magic Carpet Lift was closed) and going "super fast" down the hill. He naturally figured out how to turn to his right, and several times turned himself right around and skied backwards down the hill - Watch out Shaun White!


























The Tumbleweed also had fun on the slopes, taking the chair lift to "the second floor" with Papa and later to two Blue Square trails with the Eagle. According to her ski buddies, she just likes to point her skis down the mountain and "fly". I think I am glad it wasn't me up there watching her!

Field Trip

With two days off for teacher conferences, we had a random free day mid-week to head to the Ecotarium with our MOMS Club friends. We had a great time! It was so nice to have friends along, for the company and the extra eyes :)

The timing worked out well that it was the first Thursday of the month, so the "big" kids could go to the Budding Scientists class. I must admit, the class was not as good as the first one we went to. The topic was "light" with can be a hard topic to explain to a 4 year old, especially when they all just want to wave flashlights around :)

Much to the kids' disappointment, the 'ball maze' was no longer there. While this was brought up several times by both kids, its absence meant we actually got to do a lot of other things in the museum. The Dandelion really seemed to enjoy looking in the microscopes (although I have no idea if they were even in focus). I can't say that the Tumbleweed had a particular favorite, as she really did a good job of trying lots of things - including the air tube, the touchable tornado and the boats in the wind. And, once again, both kids enjoyed the racing ramp.






We stayed for about 4 hours, which of course would not have been possible if there had been school in the afternoon. By the time we left, the Dandelion had fallen asleep in his stroller. The sign of a good, fun day! We are looking forward to going back soon, now that we have a family membership :)

Hitting the Slopes

At the end of last winter the Tumbleweed had finally been old enough to enroll in ski school, where she did great, but she hadn't been skiing since. The Eagle has been patiently waiting to get her out skiing this year, so when the opportunity for an afternoon of skiing presented itself, off they went.

As predicted she had a great time. The Eagle took her to the learning slope as a refresher and she looked right at home. She even told the Eagle that he did not need to come up the hill with her anymore and took run after run by herself. The Eagle said he wished he had brought his skis so they could have gone up the mountain. After watching the Olympics, I don't think we should rush anything --- those skiers are crazy! And the Tumbleweed has already asked when she will be old enough to snowboard - help!

Wet Sleeves

As I dropped the Tumbleweed off at school this afternoon, she told the teacher that took her out of the car, "My sleeves are kinda wet today because I went to Rhode Island." When I picked her up, she told me that she had worn a purple shirt at school because the sleeves were too wet. Oops.

What a great mom taking her to school with a wet shirt, right? Well, perhaps I could have guessed that the Providence Children's Museum would have a water area, but having not been before I didn't even think of it.

Wet sleeves aside, I thought our morning trip to the museum went pretty well. The kids had a great time with their friends, and because we went with friends we were able to play a little "zone defense" and let the kids explore the museum a little more. I think both kids would say that the water area was their favorite (we definitely spent the most time there), but the pirate ship, construction zone and giant Lite Brite were also big hits.



The trip was not without a few tears and a time-out (for running in the water area), but all-in-all not too bad. I still didn't venture in without the stroller, but other than making the Dandelion sit it in on our way in & out, we barely used it. I am going to have to muster up a little extra energy for our trip to the Ecotarium next month if I am going to go sans stroller.

Little Scientists

The Tumbleweed has been very into science lately, from weather to animals to structures she loves it all. After seeing how much she enjoyed talking about the weather at the beginning of the school year, I have been taking her to Messy Fingers at the Millbury Library and even an 8-week Science class at the Y.

I recently found out that there is also a "Budding Scientists" class at the Worcester Ecotarium for 4-6 year-olds on the first Thursday of each month. So this morning we headed to the Ecotarium for the morning - and were able to use our First Night Buttons for free admission! The class was great. The did a short discussion about "States of Matter" followed by an experiment to see how to melt a block of ice the fastest. The Tumbleweed was in her element because she had recently learned about liquids at Messy Fingers and the Water Cycle at the Y science class so she was able to chime right in with some answers. She was also quite happy to report that her ice had melted the fastest (she had been assigned salt to pour on it).



When the little class was over the kids were unleashed into the Ecotarium, and they didn't have to go far to see the resident Macaw out with a scientist answering questions. Then it was off to an air tube where both kids enjoyed watching things fly up and out the top. I thought they would never leave it.

They moved only a short distance before finding the perfect replacement for our TV:

They stood and watched the balls move through the structure for a good 20+ minutes, and even went back later. While we were there, I even got to meet the President of the Ecotarium, as he came over and introduced himself and said he was glad the kids were enjoying it so much. That was very true, as I think we are going to attempt to build our own "ball maze" at home (although probably not quite so fancy).


Finally we moved to a different floor and the kids got to race some cars. I think the Tumbleweed had an advantage because she figured out that the round wheel was the fastest, and the Dandelion just wanted his favorite shape - the octagon.

We had to leave before lunch and get the Tumbleweed to school, but now that the Dandelion is old enough to enjoy what is going on I think we will go back again soon. I will, however, have to better discuss the rules about leaving my sight, as there were several times that the Tumbleweed disappeared on me and since I had the Dandelion out of the stroller that meant I was chasing two kids. Thankfully, the Ecotarium was quite empty this morning so they were easy to find. Why don't mothers have 8 arms or eyes in the back of their head? Or children that listen the first time?

First Night 2010

This year we had the opportunity to take the family to First Night Worcester 2010. I had seen in the paper that they had events starting at 4:00pm and "family-friendly" fireworks at 6:30pm! I was even able to get free buttons (tickets) from the BayState Parent magazine for the adults (kids under 10 are free) - thanks BayState Parent!

We grabbed out warm clothes and headed to Worcester. We were able to park for free at the Worcester Art Museum - which was exactly where we wanted to be for all of our activities. We started out at the Chinese Yo-yo presentation, which was hard for the Dandelion to sit through, but the Tumbleweed loved it. At the end she got to try out the yo-yos herself - which she was thrilled about (and took getting the yo-yo to work very seriously).

After that we headed over to the Worcester Art Museum which was hosting several events that we wanted to attend, but with limited time we had to choose only a couple. Since the Tumbleweed has shown a lot of interest in The Nutcracker this year, we opted for the Worcester Ballet Arts performance. It was very good. The Tumbleweed paid attention the whole time - even chair dancing with cute little hand-twinkling to the music (I guess you had to be there).

Once the performance was over, we went to find the craft rooms to make celebration hats. By this time the Dandelion was pretty tired, so only the Tumbleweed made one and we skipped the second craft despite the fact that the Tumbleweed would have loved to make a star-catcher. There was still a line at the star gazing telescope so we skipped that too. I was a little sad about that because I would have loved to hear the Tumbleweed say the entire "Star light, star bright" poem like she has been doing lately as she looks up into the night sky.

We were off to parade through the streets of Worcester behind a police car which both kids thought was very cool. We walked a few blocks to the Worcester Memorial Auditorium where the kids "made their own fireworks" [aka - stomped on bubble wrap] and watched the early fireworks display in the sky. Both kids were very excited to see the fireworks.












After the fireworks we decided to head home - although I would have loved to go see the trampoline and juggling acts that were taking place later into the evening. Maybe next year :) I think we did pretty well this year considering how little the kids are - and we did manage without the stroller (with 4 adults - meaning that maybe if I was an octopus we could do that on a regular basis...LOL)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Week 11

Week of August 29, 2009

Theme of the Week: Here, There & Everywhere! We really got around this week --- Western Mass, Cape Cod, Providence --- we certainly spent a fair share of time in the car. We saw lots of friends an had a lot of fun, but boy was it tiring! Only one more week before we have our full fall schedule.

Saturday: We took the long drive out to visit friends in Western Mass for a cookout. It was the first time they got to meet the Dandelion and the first time we got to meet their new baby. Fortunately, the rain that canceled the Tumbleweed's morning soccer game was nowhere to be found 'out west'.

Sunday: The Eagle had the Cranberry Country Triathlon. The kids & I were supposed to go, but decided at the last minute to change the plan to make for an easier day. Instead, the kids and I joined everyone at Nana & Papa's for the post-race dinner and spent the night.

Monday: We spent the day down around the Cape. First Papa took the kids swimming & kayaking at the Pine Hills. Then the kids & I drove to Hyannis to stop at a scrapbook store before meeting up with everyone else to take Nana out for a birthday dinner at the Chart Room. After dinner we headed home to sleep in our own beds.


Tuesday: Off to the zoo. The kids & I went to the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence with friends. The Tumbleweed was super excited to find out that they had a butterfly exhibit and that was definitely her favorite part. Both kids were challenging at times, but seemed to do a little better with their friends along.

Wednesday: A little closer to home, with grocery shopping, berry picking and karate on the agenda for the day. We had lots of fun at the berry patch, picking a whole bunch of raspberries and even some more blueberries. Then it was off to the Dandelion's make up karate class. It was only two kids (and not the one who was afraid of cameras). He really came to life as he interacted with the teacher and class materials.



Thursday: We got out the door nice & early for walking group (yay!). Then it was off to the playground in a neighboring town where we were meeting our MOMS friends. It was more crowded that I would have thought, but the kids had a blast. The Tumbleweed spent a lot of time on the swing, and even the Dandelion spent time swinging! In the afternoon the Tumbleweed had gymnastics and got her first two blisters on her hands - she was so proud, until one popped while she buckled her seatbelt.


Friday: With the Dandelion's check-up in the morning & nap in the afternoon, we didn't venture far. In the evening the Tumbleweed had soccer clinic and then we went out to dinner. With the Dandelion's track record of eating, we didn't order him anything figuring he might eat a few french fries but not much else. But for the third night in a row, he decided to eat! My BBQ burger was his target - and he really seemed to like it!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Week 10

Week of August 22, 2009

Theme of the week: Summer Exhaustion. It has been a busy summer, and with the heat still here to start the week it had me saying "is summer over yet?" frequently. By the end of the week it seemed that fall was in the air... literally, as I have been sneezing like crazy all week. Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

Saturday: The beginning of another race weekend - this time in New Hampshire. We drove up in the morning, stopping at a scrapbook store on the way, and headed straight for registration. Then it was over to the race site for the "TimberKids" race. The Tumbleweed participated in the half mile obstacle course and did a great job. We spent the night with the Eagle's cousin, who lives nearby.


Sunday: The kids & I headed to the TimberMan Half IronMan course a few hours after the Eagle, and were able to see him make the transition to the bike shortly after we got there. After that, it was a long wait to see him again - and by the time he finished we were hot & tired from being in the sun all day. Despite the sweltering heat, he was pleased with his time.


Monday: We recovered from the weekend. The race conditions, and poor hydration on my part (gave all the fluids to the kids), had really drained my energy. We spent most of the day at home - with the only diversion being a trip to the air conditioned grocery store.

Tuesday: We went to the zoo. I thought the kids would be more interested than they were. Maybe it was too hot. Maybe they were too hungry or tired. The Dandelion had a hard time seeing some of the sleeping animals & lost interest fairly quickly, despite my efforts to find familiar animals for him to see (tiger, giraffe, monkey, flamingo). The Tumbleweed wanted to hurry from one animal to the next and wasn't thrilled when we stopped to watch for a bit. But with ice cream, a playground and the opportunity to hold a macaw right before we left - it was declared "awesome" by the time we went home.


Wednesday: A morning with no plan rarely works out - and this was no exception. Despite my best efforts, the kids were antsy until naptime... but I did get some chores done once the Dandelion went down for his nap. He had karate in the afternoon - but I still don't have any pictures (didn't get there as early as I planned).

Thursday: The most perfect day weather-wise --- sunny & comfortable - hooray! We got together with friends for a playdate, and the kids had a great time playing soccer, Hi-Ho Cherry-O! and dress-up. After naptime, it was off to the gym as this week marked the first week of "Fall" practices at gymnastics. The lobby was so crowded! The Tumbleweed got right back into the swing of things & enjoyed the fact that they will be warming up with the Level 2s ("big kids" to her - ages 5 & 6 - LOL) all year.

Friday: Well, one day had to be jam-packed... We had a good time at the Barnes & noble "Back to School" storytime, where the Dandelion actually made the craft!!!! (sorry, huge accomplishment for him) After assessing the options - we had lunch at Red Robin before heading to the MOMS Club Ice Cream Social. It was chocolaty, it was messy, but we had fun :) On the way home we stopped to do a little back to school shopping at Carter's since I had an expiring coupon. They were having an awesome sale on some jammies - I got the Dandelion 4 pairs for $2.23 each! From there we picked up the soccer shirts (which are pink this year), but unfortunately the rain rolled in canceling our first team practice (and eventually the first game on Saturday too).