Friday: Perseid meteor shower.

Today's plan was to go to the beach to watch the Perseid meteor shower.  The astronomy club was putting on an event.

The boys took naps.  Joshua decided to take a nap on the floor.  It was a bit weird, but he did sleep.

We got in the car and started traveling.  When we were two miles away from the beach traffic started to get rather busy.  I didn't think that all those cars could be going to the beach...surely this event wasn't that popular.  When we were 1.5 miles away the traffic turned into stop and go traffic.  As I rounded the corner all I saw were taillights.

We turned around.  A mile and a half of traffic trying to get into the beach!  There isn't that much parking!  The s'mores would be gone!  It would be a madhouse!  Where did all these people come from???

So the boys got their pajamas on and we made s'mores at home.  The marshmallows didn't get very warm.

Joshua was done with star gazing pretty much right away.  Isaac and I lasted about an hour, but I only saw two and Isaac said he saw two while I was inside checking on Joshua.  Either it was too light out on the deck or they just weren't really showing up.  I was very disappointed.  However, I got the star chart out and Isaac and I had a really good time looking for the constellations and the stars.

Vacation day 2: Impressions 5

We went to Impressions 5 for the second day of our little vacation. 

The first thing we did was played with water blocks...that looked a lot like Legos...

There were several other fun water things to do, and by the end their pants were soaked.  Luckily, we had yesterday's clothes in the car.

We then went upstairs and played dentist for a bit, but that area soon got busy and we moved on.

They found a space station to play in for a while.  My favorite quote was when some other kid said, "We're about to launch into space!"  and Joshua corrected with, "We're already in space!"

We did some cool light things and throwing things and had a lunch of junk food.  Joshua was being a little (lot) grumpy by this time so we went to our tried and true favorite: blocks.

First we built a chimney.

Then Isaac made some stairs and Joshua just climbed all over on the blocks.  But he was happy, so it was good.

Then we moved over to the pipes.  Joshua had (sort of) wanted to play with the water pipes so it was nice to instead have some dry pipes.

We finished off our time by building a bridge.

Both boys fell asleep on the way home...we completely wore them out.

Thursday: life

Joshua had his four year old check up two days ago.  He is in the 16% for weight and 22% for height.  These follow his growth charts pretty well, so no worries there.

This morning we did water balloons.  The boys enjoyed them, although we went through them pretty quickly.

This evening we went to the playground with one of Isaac's classmates.  They're in the same class next year, so that will be nice.  We started to take a walk with them and then turned around because Isaac's stomach was off.   (It was also bedtime.)  He ended up throwing the biggest tantrum that he's ever thrown.  He wanted to show me something on a map, but since it was after the car I said no.  (If we can't finish the walk, we can't look at the map.  It made sense to me.)  It did not make sense to him and I had many tears and several times that he stopped walking.  Joshua and I kept walking, always keeping him in sight.  The last time to the car he stood still for a respectably long time, but then "decided to make the right decision" and walked to the car.  It was a good decision, because I was going to uncomfortably carry him if I had to go back to get him.

We had a few other issues when we got home, and it ended up with me telling Isaac that he couldn't eat his carrots because it was time for bed.  It felt like a weird thing to say.

I had Ben put Isaac to bed.  I kept my cool, but was rather done with it all.

Wednedsay: birthday gifts

Joshua has been enjoying his new bubble blower.  Coupled with seeing the neighbor across the street, we've been doing quite a bit of bubbles lately.  Isaac likes to swat them.

We went to a play this afternoon that was given to us for Joshua's birthday too.  The kids enjoyed it, and it held their attention the whole time - a sign that it was interesting.  It was called 'Dragon Pack Snack Attack', which is why Dragon is with us.  Grey Bear got to come too.

Monday: the big day

Joshua has been so excited for his birthday party.  So excited.  We finished hanging the decorations this afternoon and I'm pretty sure the rest of the afternoon dragged for him as I was doing the last minute preparations.

He choose a meal of chicken nuggets (I picked dino-nuggets), carrots, strawberries, and blueberries.  And, of course, cake and ice cream.  Ben also picked up some potato wedges and mac and cheese to round it out.  He was excited that Scarlet was going to be there and was pretty sure that she would love the chicken nuggets too.

Presents!  He got two new Duplo sets.  While Joshua is easily doing Legos, he still uses Duplos all the time.  These sets were chosen with care to have some interesting pieces.  One has a shooter and the other has slides and spinning gears.

Did I mention he was excited about his cake?

Isaac was pretty excited about the two Duplo sets too, and so they put them together together.  Joshua also showed his cousins his Police Lego set.  He finished it yesterday, and did a ton of it by himself.  I think his biggest problem was that he sometimes missed a few pages, so Ben and I had to go back through the police station a few times and fix something.  He did a great job doing it mostly on his own though!

Sunday: preview

Joshua's pretty excited about his birthday party tomorrow.  I hope it lives up to his expectations.

I picked up his cake this afternoon.  He requested the name 'Puppy'.

Vacation day 1: Legoland

On Wednesday we went to LegoLand in Auburn Hills.  This was a great choice for our family - we stayed from 10am-6pm and really could have probably stayed a bit longer. 

The first ride is something like 'Kingdom Adventure', but, as with most games, it got renamed to 'Baby Dragon'.  Joshua was scared the first time on it, but semi-willingly went on it a second time when Isaac was excited about it.  After that it was a breeze; we visited it several times throughout the day to save the baby dragon.

The next thing is a Miniworld of Detroit.  It had fun buttons to push and a search and find, so the boys stayed in there longer than I expected.

Then on to the main room, which at first glance didn't look very large.  At second glance it wasn't very large either, but they packed things in.  Isaac and I started with the second ride, while Ben and Joshua made a fast race car and seahorses.

We did the master builder course next, which was again just someone walking you through how to put a set together...and not even taught by the resident master builder.  We had a bit of time at the beginning, so we made things out of blue pieces.  There were also a bunch of lovely pieces in the room.  I think I'd be quite happy decorating the house with such decor...

There were 4 4D movies to watch too.  Joshua was a bit scared with all of them, but held it together through the first one and wanted to go to the others.  Joshua and I probably could have skipped getting wet; it added to the scariness for him and made me cold.  However, the movies were fun.

The kids also loved the playground area.  It was rather nice because they could play a bit and then we would do something else and they would play a bit and we would do something else.  It was rather busy in the early afternoon, but by late afternoon it had cleared out.  Some other kids had moved all the giant lego bricks up to one of the high spots and Isaac and Joshua and another kid spent about an hour...doing something.

We got some more Legos at the end and went on to the next hotel.  The boys took naps in the car so they could play Legos when we got to the hotel.

Overall, it was a lovely day.  The boys, especially Joshua, loved having Ben around and was sure to let him know it...it was super cute.  Both of them want to go back again too.