More Summertime Adventures

When Arden was a baby/toddler, a bunch of girls in the neighborhood would take our kids to a different fun place every week during the summertime. Then last year and this year we simplified and just go to a different local park each week instead. It has been great since my kids would go to the park every day if they could. Even Cora can get herself up stairs and down the smaller slides without any help. And it is a lot easier for the moms to chat at the park! But I missed going to some of the places we used to go, so I took the kids to a couple of the favorites myself.
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First up was Wheeler Farm. It is fun to go to the farm because it is free, and the kids think it is almost as good as the zoo. We don't see very many cows or sheep around our house, so they are almost exotic animals. But the first thing we have to do is pretend we are driving the tractors like real farmers do:

We saw bunnies, sheep, cows, horses, pigs, goats, and lots of chickens. We also fed the ducks and geese. Dax was a little afraid of the cows, and even though they were behind a fence, he liked to keep his distance. But he wasn't afraid of the baby cows, he tried to climb up into this little guy's stall:

The kids were a little disappointed that the horses were far away on the other side of their pasture, but I got them some 25 cent otter pops and they quickly forgot their sorrows.

Our next adventure was the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. They have a pretty cool inside museum with a lot of dinosaur skeletons:

Dax was a little afraid of the skeletons, especially because they had some face dinosaur roaring sounds playing over the sound system. Here is Dax, huddled in a corner, hiding from the dinosaur bones: Poor little guy! He quickly figured out that nothing was moving and was soon running all over the place like his usual 2-year-old self. Outside there are dozens and dozens of life-size dinosaur statues, but Arden liked these cut-outs most of all:

Ride em, dinogirl! Arden did like this particular group of dinosaurs. She said, "Look Mom! That mommy dinosaur is giving those baby ones a ride!"

Umm....hmmmmm. A ride. Yeah. How nice.

Arden kept asking where the "park" was since we were at the "Dinosaur Park," and luckily they do have a playground. They have a few dinosaurs that the kids can climb on, some swings and some slides and a regular playground. Here are the kids riding on a friendly baby dinosaur:

Finally, last weekend we made our annual trip to the Weber County Fair for the demolition derby. We brought all the kids to show them the animals and other fair stuff before the derby started. Dax's favorite was the sheep. He just had to touch them all. I think he petted about 100 sheep that day:

Cora's favorite were the cows. I had to stop her from climbing up next to the cows quite a few times:

After we looked at the animals and got some delicious and very unhealthy fair food (spiral fries anyone???) we took the kids over to see the wild animal show. They had a monkey, a cougar, and regular tiger and a young white tiger among others. The kids really liked the show, but we were staring right into the sun so I have no pictures. Daxton especially liked the tigers, and roared a lot during the show. He roars all the time. Sometimes he is a dinosaur, sometimes a lion, sometimes a tiger. He roars just for fun. He roars if he can't get what he wants. He roars at other kids if they won't give him the toy they have. He roars at the neighbor boy to establish his territory. Today he roared so loud at one of his little friends that he made them cry (sorry Luke!). Anyway....

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My parents took the little kids home and the rest of us met up with my cousins for the demolition derby! I always say that going to the fair is like visiting another country, and the derby is definitely part of that. It is just so far outside our every day life, but so much fun to do once a year. We had a great time, although the end of the derby was absolute chaos. (http://connect2utah.com/news-story/?nxd_id=104245... my cousin's boyfriend is the one who shot the footage and did the interview!)

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This summer has flown by so fast!