Labor Day Weekend

We had a little stay-cation over Labor Day weekend. We played tourist and visited a couple of places that we hadn't been before (or at least not for years and years).

First up was a visit to the "This is the Place/Heritage Park" on Saturday. We went with some friends and their kids who were experienced veterans and they were great tour guides. The first thing we had to do was (of course) the pony rides. Here is one of my favorite pictures:

Cute little cowboy! Dax absolutely loved his first time on a horse. Arden had fun too:

Corbie took her first ride too, but unfortunately most of the time she was on the horse I was next to Dax trying to make sure he didn't fall off of his, so I missed taking her picture. But she really loved the "Petting Corral" and ran around like crazy yelling "EEP! EEP!" (Sheep!) from under her binkie.

Next we rode on a big train around the park so that we could ride on a little train:

Then the kids panned for gold in a stream (well actually Preston picked the teeny gold nuggets out of the stream with his fingers, but anyway) we took our nuggets to the bank and traded them for a piece of candy! It was getting pretty hot by then, so we stopped for some ice cream (delicious but MESSSSSSSY). We wandered around Main Street for a while, then went over to some small houses/cabins for the kids to play in. Corbie planted herself on this baby size porch rocker in front of the baby size house and thought that she had found her own little slice of heaven:

The kids all had a great time...up until the very end when Dax got ahold of the stroller ran over Cora with it. I strapped Daxton in the stroller for a time-out, and we made quite a dramatic exit from the Place with two screaming babies. But it we will definitely be back!

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Monday we went to the Living Planet aquarium in Sandy. I knew it wasn't a very big place so I wasn't expecting much. It was small, but it was actually the perfect size for us and they had a lot of really great stuff. Dax loved all the frogs they had, and when the kids saw this sculpture they had to all pile on:

Dax was transfixed:

There was "storytime" while we were there. All the kids went and sat down on the floor to hear the story. Right in the middle of the story, Dax started singing a montage of "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," "Yellow Submarine" and the "Mailtime" song from Blues Clues at the top of his lungs. Arden tried to cover up his mouth with her hand, but that only led to a wrestling match with Dax screaming like a girl at the top of his lungs. Sooooo, Dax's storytime experience was cut a little short. Ah, the joys of two-year-old boys.

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Some of the kids' favorites were the jellyfish, the pipefish, the sharks, the stingrays, the octopus (awesome), and the penguins ("PEN-GIN" was Cora's new word of the day):

It was a pretty fun weekend. We spent Monday night grilling in the backyard and having our daily nectarine feast. We have a couple of nectarine trees and this year the kids and I have really enjoyed going out in the backyard each afternoon and eating one (or two, or five) right off the tree. One day Corbie had a "Appo" (what she calls nectarines...she thinks they are apples) in each hand and was eating them both at once. I ran inside to get the camera but by the time I got back out she had finished one off and was nearly done with the other:

She is FAST. Here she is with her fellow nectarine-gluttons:

Yummmm.