Happy Birthday!

Hard to believe my Busy Little B turned 8 this year!  He was so excited about his birthday and was counting down the days for the last week LOL  We tried to make the day all about his favorites so we started the day with homemade pancakes.  After lunch we hit the road--he chose a local museum for his birthday outing.  We've been there so many times, we can walk through really fast because they read all the plaques, done all of the activities, and studied it all multiple times.  They still love going, though.  They have favorites exhibits and will glance at the others as we walk by and then spend a good amount of time doing their favorite things.  We always have to visit the old courtroom and get in the witness box:

And its a big open area so a little dancing or spinning usually happens ;)

The one we always spend the most time at is the gas station room--lots of old pumps and signs and cans and best of all a toy car they can "work" on :)

After the museum, we went to the Dollar Tree--its the only thing B asked for as a present LOL  He loves that store so much.  He had been saving for a while to go shopping there plus I bought him a Yo-kae figure (eight bucks at the regular store, a dollar at the dollar tree!) and Iz got him a Yo-kai plushie.  Kid was so happy.

We made his very favorite foods for dinner--hot dogs, mac and cheese, fries, and broccoli.  He wanted a salad, too, but didn't have room after all the other food :p  We went to the park to play and there were a ton of kids there so he had a blast running around with them.  No pictures of my oldest three because of the other kids but I did capture W's trip on the slide:

We ended the day with an ice cream cone at McDonalds

The Adventures of Duck, Trip Three Day Three

Duck was up early again and on his way!

They crossed into Texas today which means Duck drops off the building and heads north again.

Time to head back north!

Miss Iz found some more of our ducks (Princess Duck and a second Army Duck) and had grand plans to bring them along on our own Kid Adventures today but then she forget them at home :P

But that's okay because original Army Duck was already hanging out in the truck

We went to a kid's STEM exhibit at the museum today and much fun was had by all :)  Army Duck ended up staying in S's pocket because all of them were too busy having fun to get him out and take pictures with him ;)

Duck made it to Nebraska to spend the night.  Unfortunately, he doesn't get any time at home this trip--he won't even come close to us!  He met another big truck driver in Nebraska and in the morning they head south to Texas again with another building.  If their travel permits keep them on the interstate, the big truck doesn't need the escort so the building came down the first two days of the trip alone to meet up with Mr. Piper and Duck to get the building down south faster.  Tomorrow they will have parts of the trip off the interstate, though, so the timing is right for the big truck to meet up with the pilot truck ;)

Art Museum To The Rescue!

Last weekend, we got hit with high humidity.  Heat by itself doesn't really bother us but couple it with humidity and no one wants to be outside!  And you know its hot when the boys choose to stay in :p  So on one of those hot humid days, we sought refuse inside the Art Museum and its lovely air conditioning :p

The kids had never been to an Art Museum before--we had gone to history and science museums in the past.  S takes Art in school and it is one of his favorite classes and when he learned that Aunt Heidi used to love going to Art Museums with me when she was a kid, he decided that we just had to visit an Art Museum this summer.  The one in the Big City to the South is free, you just have to pay parking, so off we went :)

The boys are still a bit young to appreciate most of the art and it kinda felt like we were speed walking through most of the museum but they did have fun and both want to go back (Iz is up for anything that involves riding around in her stroller).  A few of the pieces caught their attention and they wanted to stop and really really look at them but mostly they just liked walking past and seeing things.

The really fun part for them came at the end, though--the Family Center.  First room we went to was full of games and toys and things for playing pretend.  Iz had fun doing some color matching puzzles:

S and B made a bee line for the marble runs and trains (and were soon joined by Miss Iz, who divided her time between being helpful and playing her role as Idzilla....):

The second room of the Family Center is the art room--the Littles were not really interested in going there so they stayed with my Mom in the playroom and S and I headed over to do some artwork :)  I made him a colored pencil sketch and he made me a 3D picture complete with teepee, torch, and jeweled river :)

Using giant q-tips to make a teepee

And when we left, I spotted this in the parking lot:

I have never seen a real, live, honest-to-goodness electric car charging station before :p  I was quite excited!  I couldn't leave without a picture :p