Dinosaur Land (Field Trip #1)

The very first Magic Tree House book was all about Dinosaurs. I didn't come up with the whole "field trip" idea until book #2. So as we kept going forward and found a field trip for every book, I always felt that we had a loose end to tie up and wanted to take our boys to Dinosaur Land in Winchester, VA. This fall, we finally went on our field trip #1:

This entire post is filled with pictures of the dinosaur statues we encountered on the wooded path. Mikie knows all their names and if he was awake I'd caption each one, but alas...he's asleep and I want to get this post published so here are the dinos without names:

Video:

I really thought this one would set off a flood of emotions since his favorite dinosaur is being eaten...but it didn't!

Video: Reading about his favorite one:

His second favorite:

There was a beautiful sign of fall at the edge of the park:

Loose end.....tied up! Field trip #1 completed!

Zachary's first sleepover & more

Mikie had his first sleep over at the Wyman's while I went to the hospital to have Zachary 3 years ago. So, when the Shay's volunteered to keep our kids overnight I had Kathy snap a few pictures of his first sleepover. This one cracks me up! Lily loves Zachary and is always trying to hug him a bit too long and a bit too hard. The look on Zach's face pretty much says it all "What is she going to do to me now?"
Kathy said he went to bed with only a tiny teary moment and slept all night long.
Ready for bed.

With Mikie now in Kindergarten, Zachary and I spent the first few weeks of our "one on one time" playing in parks and feeding the ducks.

The boys always felt sorry for this one goose and nicknamed him "hurtwing." We hadn't seen this particular goose for a while and Mikie was getting worried about him. As soon as we picked Mikie up from school, Zachary told him that we did indeed see Hurtwing again!

One day, Zachary pulled out my Discovery Toys Word Flip game and began adding the two dice together. I didn't know he knew how to add!

It appears that I have another mathematician in my midst.

Of course, big brother has a lot of influence on what Zachary is learning. It is a little strange to hear a three year old singing the alphabet of nations:


And this video is a bit sad, but too cute! Zach tells us that the stage was too "Slip-a-ly"

Virginia Farm Tour

The farm tours in WA were always one of my favorite annual activities while we lived there, so when I heard of one that was happening in VA, I decided we should go. While it was fun, it doesn't come close to the ones on Whidbey Island and Skagit Valley. And the weather....UGH! It was HOT! Way too hot to be on a dusty, dirty farm...but we went anyway.

Farm tours are always more fun if you have friends to go with you, so we asked the Shays to come along. Of all the kids, I can say for certain that Lily had the most fun at the farms with animals. I think she wanted to take one of the alpacas home with her. A cute moment:
The horse farm proved to be one of the kids' favorites.

They had a chance to practice jumping like a horse:

Video of them jumping:

And saw some sheep at the last farm:

At the last farm, they had pony rides, bouncy houses, and a corn box. I'll let you think about that last one after looking at this picture:
Everyone had a turn holding a baby chick.

yes...that is sweat...it was that hot! Now picture him in a sandbox filled with corn....

AN ICKY STICKY MESS!!!

I'll take the rain and mud over the heat and humidy anyday!

Thomas Town at Six Flags

Thanks to a friend of a friend, we got free tickets to Six Flags in Maryland and enjoyed an afternoon at Thomas Town.

The boys......

...rode on Harold the Helicopter...

...saw Gordon...
...and Percy...

...and James....

...rode the balloon carousel multiple times trying to get on the Spencer balloon...

...and settled for a ride on Salty instead....

....a short wait at Knapford Station allowed us to....

take a ride on Thomas....

and finally meet Sir Topham Hatt!

Adventures with P.J. Penguin

When Mikie was chosen as the first one to bring the class mascot P.J. Penguin home for a weekend adventure, I was sad that we didn't have a "field trip" to take him on. But then, we found enough stuff for P.J. to do and write about in his journal.... He was tossed, bounced, and thrown around our bouncy house.

He cheered for Mikie during his bowling league.

He helped build an elaborate tower of pins and blocks.

And we just HAD to take P.J. mini-golfing:

Even Zachary was proud to call P.J. his friend.

After a hot round of golf, a stop to Cold Stone ended our day.

P.J. assists Mikie with Penguin Slide on the Wii.

It was fun to watch my son "care for" his class mascot and talk to him like a friend.

A week later, while studying the letter "U" Mikie's class had an umbrella parade. We couldn't find the tree frog umbrellas from The Rain Forest Cafe (remember that post?!) so he borrowed his brother's Zebra umbrella.