Rocky Mountain Adventure

For a few months, Brent has been talking about planning a surprise vacation for the family. At the beginning of July, he booked it. I had a few clues, but didn't really know where we were going. We left on Friday evening and flew to Denver. The kids did great on the plane. We stayed at the Renaissance, which was really nice. When we walked in, Ashley said, "I love this hotel! It's beautiful!" It had glass elevators that looked out over the lobby, which were a big hit with the kids. The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel, then Brent went to get the rental car. I was pretty impressed with myself, because while he was getting the car, I packed up our suitcases and managed to get 4 suitcases, 2 backpacks and 2 three-year-olds down to the lobby.

Tyler and Ashley have definitely become good travelers, when they can each wear a backpack and wheel a suitcase around. I'm seeing a number of vacations in our future. After checking out of the hotel, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and then loaded up in the car and headed into the mountains. By late afternoon, we had checked into our condo in Winter Park. After getting settled, we headed out to explore the village.

We enjoyed dinner on the patio at the Cheeky Monk. It always feels like vacation when we sit on a patio, since we get to do it so rarely in Oklahoma. They had some big games and blocks set up at different places throughout the village, which the kids enjoyed.

I'll post again later with more of our adventures.

Museum of Osteology and Pioneer Pies

So on Thursday, Tyler requested that we go someplace we have never been. Well, we recently got a coupon book as part of a prize in the library's summer reading game. So, perusing it, I came across a coupon for the Museum of Osteology, and off we went.

The museum was not that impressive, but the kids enjoyed it. It did have hundreds of bones, everything from the giraffe right here, to a T-Rex skull to little birds and rodents. After the museum, we headed to Pioneer Pies, and enjoyed a yummy lunch, including a piece of Peanut butter chocolate cream pie.

All in all a successful day.

Wondertorium

Wednesday was another "day"-cation, and we drove up to Stillwater, to the Wondertorium. We had been here before, but it has been a while. As expected, the kids loved it. They first had to do a little fishing in the "boat."

They went down this slide about 20 times.

Notice that Tyler is looking out with his binoculars.  Ashley's favorite, of course, was the doctor's area.

She loved the real stethoscope, and they both, of course, loved the "crunches."

With the doctor's area they also had a nursery, so we had to swaddle and sling some of the babies, in addition to listening to their heartbeats, weighing them and giving them shots.

They both, of course, kept good records of all of this (like any good doctor would).

They also spent quite some time building walls, towers and forts with the gigantic blocks.

They also loved the water table.

And the General Store was also a big hit.

They could put eggs in these little holes in the General Store and collect them from the "nests" on the other side.

This kept their attention for quite some time. There were also some dress up clothes, so they both had turns being the big bad wolf.

Another successful trip!

We Have Bunting

Not exactly sure why, but I have always loved patriotic bunting, so when we bought our house, I thought our front porch would be perfect for some bunting around the 4th of July. It's our third summer in this house, but we finally have bunting!

Yes, I made Brent stand precariously on our 6' ladder to put it up.

Actually, he was a willing participant, as was Tyler.

The kids also enjoyed waving some smaller flags that we purchased.

And running around the front yard, and generally acting crazy. In general, they obeyed our "no using the flags like swords to fight each other" rule. Brent joked that I was taking progress shots, so that I could post a blog that ended with him in the ER because he fell from the ladder.

Luckily, no such incident occurred. And when we finished, Tyler let Brent know that his work was worth it by telling him, "These are really great decorations, daddy!"

Myriad Gardens

Today was a play date at the Myriad Gardens.

We met up with Aunt Karla, Athena, Danielle, Peyton and Parker. The kids loved playing in the fountain.

And we had fun at the children's garden, too.

It's such a cool place!

Another fun summer day!

Jasmine Moran Children's Museum

For our second "day"-cation of the summer, I took the kids to the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum in Seminole. I think this might be my favorite of the Oklahoma children's museums. The kids loved it!

Tyler's favorite exhibit was this car repair area.

He changed the tires on this car probably a dozen times, in addition to "refilling the fluids," changing the air filters and checking out the muffler. Ashley may not have liked it as much as Tyler but she definitely got into the action.

Ashley's favorite exhibit was the grocery store.

She loved the little miniature carts and particularly the produce section.

They both enjoyed checking and bagging, too.

Our other favorite exhibit involved "bricks, " which the kids loved raising and lowering in this bucket.

They played with another little girl in this exhibit forever, finally working out a  system where Tyler would use the wheel barrow to collect bricks, bring them and put the in the gray bin, Ashley would put them in the bucket and raise them up to the other little girl, and then she would take them out of the bucket and walk across and throw them down the chute.

I was pretty impressed with 3 three-year-olds coming up with such a system on their own. The kids also liked the dino dig.

I think Ashley could have played in the sand for hours, if Tyler hadn't been ready to move on. And Ashley actually found a pair of crutches that were her size.

And Tyler enjoyed "driving" the fire truck.

We had such a great time! So great we ended up staying until they closed. The kids are already begging to go back.

Pirate Day

Yesterday was the first in a series of theme days that I'm planning for this summer.  It was pirate day...and the kids loved it.

They dressed in Jake and Izzy costumes (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates). We had bought these costumes for Pirate in the Caribbean Night on our Disney cruise, and they have been in our dress-up bin, so it was fun to get them out. I also wore a costume (the one Brent wore on our cruise), but I intentionally made sure there was no photographic evidence of it.

Our first activity of the day was to make "jewel"-encrusted swords.

I found these awesome foam swords at the dollar store and the kids got to add some stick-on jewels.

Next, we went to the back porch and dug for buried treasure.

I hid some dollar store rings, earrings and coins in the sand, and the kids dug and dug.

We did this for a while and even came back to it later on in the day. 

My other big activity was a treasure hunt with a map.

I made a large map of our house and yard on an old grocery sack. I even took the time to burn the edges for effect.  I definitely spent the most time on this, and some of the detailing was probably lost on 3-year-olds, but I had a lot of fun with it.

I put "x"'s at places throughout the house and we used the map to find "gold doubloons."

The kids were so happy when they found them. I didn't get any pictures of lunch, but the kiddos got little pirate flags in their PB and J sandwiches and sword toothpicks in their craisens. The day ended with dinner from Long John Silver's, movie night watching Treasure Island (Tyler liked it and asked to watch it again sometime. Ashley thought their was too much fighting. I agree with Ashley.), and finally a pirate bedtime story...How I Became a Pirate, which is a really cute book. Overall, pirate day was a huge success...has me looking forward to our next theme day, cowboy day.