A trip to the Dinosaur Park

Please tell me I am NOT the only one. I have gone along knowing that I had things to blog but thought it hadn't been that long since I had posted. Holy smokes it is August 18th already?! When did that happen?!

So I am sure that you have been wondering what we have been up to in the past little bit. You can snicker right... wait for it .... okay, now.

Alrighty then...so a couple of weekends ago we went up to O-town and went to the Dinosaur park. Josh always loves a good tour of the "stomping grounds" where he was always well behaved and never caused trouble.

We had gone to the dinosaur park years ago when we had 2 less children, slept more (even though at the time we didn't think we slept that much) and didn't have to bring so much crap with us.

Flash forward a few years later and here we are. Things had changed there and for the better I might add. Thank goodness.

Those of you who have been "back in the day" know what I am talking about. It was pure torture to me. Give me rocks and let me chew them rather than go look at a bunch of dinosaur statues "hidden" in bushes and hanging out by the water with a playground. Josh on the other hand loves it. Always has and always will.

So when we got there they had a whole visitors center filled with bones and fossils and gemstones and even animatronic dinosaurs. I was impressed. They have come a long way. LONG way.

Going anywhere with 3 kids=lots of stuff to take too. Tina had bought this wagon when Zach was little and we loved it. We looked everywhere to find one and never found it. Zach is too big and Tina had called and asked if we wanted it. Heck yeah! THANK YOU TINA!! The kids LOVE it! And now we can haul our kids and all their junk in style!


Hayden was in awe of all of the dinosaur stuff. He was amazed at how big they really were.


I have always thought that T-rex was bigger than other dinosaurs but he looked a little wimpy by the other dinosaur (nope, I have NO clue what dinosaur that is and I am proud of it! hehehe!)


Tina and Zach came along and Hayden decided that Tina is his buddy!




I have decided that I am going to donate all of the kids toys to charity, every last one of them, and then just get a big giant sandbox-throw in some rocks and such and give them some paintbrushes and call it good. They had more fun here than they have ever had with their toys. They would have spent hours here.

Even Josh got in on the action. See what I am saying? You might want to give it a try too. No more toys to step on or trip over EVER!

This is how we walked around. Now see why we love this wagon? A space for every kid.

Now the Dinosaur park has done some major changing but they did keep the dinosaurs in the bushes.

At one point we found this one. I think they ran out of different dinosaurs to put in and thought, "We can just make one up. We will slap a bunch of different animals together and call it a dinosaur." So I give you the "deer kangaroo dinosaur"...just slap some horns on that thing and ta-dah...full fledged dinosaur!


After some duck feeding and playing at the park we headed inside to enjoy the air conditioning and let the kids play. They colored pictures and built their own dinosaurs.




I wasn't fooled by their cute appearance and decided to trust the sign and not take these home with me.
We finished off the trip with a visit to the cutest little ice cream shop. It was like walking back into the 50s (not that I was alive then, but from what I hear at least ;) hehehe!) complete with ice cream, penny candy, and adorable little tables and chairs. Whoops no pictures! I guess I am going to have to take one for the team and go back. But what good is a trip for just pictures and no ice cream?! I guess I am going to have to get that while I am there too!