Pirates.

This past Tuesday, Evan had taken the day off to take Elisabeth to her class field trip to see a movie. But, then we decided to bump it up a notch and take a family field trip instead.

Denver has a Nature and Science Museum that we had never visited before and we heard that they had a pirate exhibit. Once we all heard the word pirate, we were sold.

So, we called saying Ebeth wouldn't be coming to school that day and headed out to Denver for the day.

Believe it or not, I completely forgot my camera at home. I know! That is like leaving one of the kids behind! So, you'll have to settle for my phone and Evan's phone pictures. :)

The museum is quite large. Not only is an entire day's worth of exploring, it's jam packed full of awesome exhibits. We visited the wild nature exhibit, the space exhibit and the rock and gem exhibit.
We ate lunch at their T. Rex Cafe, which had excellent food at reasonable prices! I was expecting to fork over my arm and leg for the girls' meals, but they were only $3.95 each. Plus, the kids' macaroni and cheese was super yummy.

Then, we made our way to the Pirate exhibit. The kids all got a treasure map when they entered the pirate exhibit. Julia thought that was flipping awesome.
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the entire exhibit was amazing. A crew of historians had set out in search of a well known pirate ship that had sunk while trying to make it back to the East Coast (Rhode Island, I think?). Anyway, they were able to find it and bring up some of the things from the sunken ship including some of the eating supplies, treasure, cannons and a lot more. It was so interesting and we all loved it.

When you left the exhibit, the kids exchanged their treasure maps for a pirate hat and a "tattoo".
After the pirates, we wandered over to the Prehistoric exhibit.


The bone that Kayleigh is pretending to nosh on is an actual bone from a triceratop's leg!!!
This little old man was a wealth of knowledge. He was peppy and informative and obviously loved volunteering at the museum. I love it when the people in the exhibits are so enthusiastic about what they know and love.
Lastly, we headed over to the health exhibit. Next to the pirates, this was my absolute favorite. This picture I took:
Was an actual human digestive system. Someone donated their body to science and this was preserved and now used to show you how a granola bar is digested in your body. Each little jar next to the digestive system was the granola bar at a different stage of it's trip through you. It was fascinating!!! And Julia was in awe of the poop in a jar. I think she finally realized why we all poop after that illustrative explanation.

They had a bunch of different stations that showed you how your body worked or how different things effect your body.

They also had a play area for small kiddos.
And a science lab where you actually got to do experiments. Elisabeth spent most of her time in there and we didn't see her for over an hour.
Julia found the very fun impression peg board thingy. Pink baby had a turn...
Evan had a turn...
And Julia really threw herself into it...
We were at the museum for 6 full hours and really only got to see half of what we wanted to see. There were still three other exhibits we didn't even get to! I told the girls we'd definitely be making another trip before we moved.

We've been kind of busy...

At least, it super feels like we've been super busy. Seems like when it's spring time, it's time for a bunch of field trips or traditional excursions. You know? School's wrapping up (which is always full of things to attend) and summer's approaching (so we're finding more things to go to outside).

In April alone, we seemed to have something planned weekly. We went to the Colorado Springs Auto Show at the World Arena. Not a huge car venue (like the Denver Auto Show we went to last year but missed this year). Evan loves auto shows and we've been attending them yearly since I was pregnant with Elisabeth. We've been to auto shows in Peoria, Chicago and Geneva, Illinois and now the ones in Denver and Co Springs.

Julia was stoked to see Muno at the car show. She's a Yo Gabba Gabba fan.
I have no idea what this thing is, but Ebeth thought it was adorable.

A couple weeks later, the church the girls' attended on Wednesday nights had a "end of the season" party at Skate City. Ebeth has her own roller blades from last Christmas and Evan has some too, so they skated together while Julia and I played some skiball. I don't want to brag, but I won a lot of tickets due to my skiball skills.
Rachel and her kiddos were there too. Elisabeth is all about odd faces in photos these days...
Sometimes Elisabeth didn't cling to the wall!
But, most of the time she did.

Julia was so proud of Evan for skating. At one point she told him, "Hey, I need wheels too!".
There was face painting. How cute is Ebeth's face painting?! I love the cloud nose.
Mabel chose to be a dog. I was borderline on being creeped out (I hate fully painted faces. It freaks me the eff out).

At the end of April, Elisabeth and I went to see a production of Pippi Longstocking. Kyle bought Elisabeth the book and the tickets to see this show for Christmas.
Elisabeth is such a theater junkie. Not that she's ever had a choice in the matter. We've been taking her to see plays since she was barely 3.
I was very impressed with the production. It was a musical and the cast was excellent. It was a community theater troupe that does child friendly shows. There were booths an hour before the show with crafts and activities for the kids to do that kind of introduced things about Pippi. The program was full of games and activities as well.
After the show, there were cookies and milk and the cast would sign the autograph page in the program. Elisabeth loves getting to meet the actors.

It was so much fun. Definitely a community theater troupe to take your kids to if you live in the Colorado Springs area.

Don't worry, May is just as packed full of activities. I'm super excited about a couple of them (like the overnight at the zoo!!!!!!!)

Some spring time thoughts.

So, spring around here in lovely ol' Colorado means a lot of this:

Rain. Snow. Wind. More wind. And then...more wind.

But, when the sun comes out, it is gorgeous and pretty warm. I'm trying not to complain too much because when we go to San Antonio (and I die from sweating into a puddle of sweat) it'll be most warm at this time of year (like 80s and 90s).

Today is this little lady's half birthday:
That might be one of my most favoritest pictures of her ever. Seriously, she's going to be so beautiful when she's grown up that Evan's already talking about getting a shot gun. She is 8.5 today and that means in six months she'll be 9 and then I might need to cry because she'll be a year from 10 and that's double digits.

As for this child:
She has not slept well the last three nights due to a cold and wakes up whimpering and crying. It's so sad. Sometimes she doesn't wake up at all; she just makes the noises in her sleep. When she does wake up she just wants a few cuddles and to be re-tucked in. Nothing tugs on my heart strings more than when the girls make sad noises in their sleep. You can't do anything for them but don't you wish you could jump into their dreams and make them happier?

This week the weather's supposed to warm up again, so I'm hoping for more trips to the park.
Oh, and where did April go?! Cause I feel like I can't account for most of the days.
Guess I'll just have to pay better attention to May.

Fire Station Field Trip

Last week, Elisabeth's class took a fieldtrip to the local fire station. Julia and I met her there. Ebeth was excited to see us.

I always enjoy going on Ebeth's fieldtrips because I get to see her interact with her classmates. She has a sweet personality and it's nice to see that she doesn't become someone else at school (like a nasty little punk). I also find it amusing to see how many parents show up for fieldtrips. I don't remember having that many chaperones when I was in grade school, but maybe I just ignored them all.

Did you know they don't really push the whole "Stop, Drop and Roll" thing anymore? And that they only were telling kids that in the 70s because their pajamas were not fire retardant? Turns out that kids were stopping, dropping and rolling when they saw smoke or weren't on fire but saw fire instead of trying to get out of the house. Now they encourage kids to get out pronto. See, you learn something new every day.

One of the kids asked if fire stations ever need to call another fire station because of a fire in the building. Turns out, fire stations were often frequently in need of help putting out fires in their stations because they'd all leave for a call and leave their stoves on or the grills or whatnot. Now they have timers for their stoves and grills and other things so that they automatically turn off if they all leave in a rush and forget to turn it off themselves.
Julia did a great job participating. She was a dog toward the end and was crawling around and barking, but we were outside, so it didn't matter.

Getting to go on fieldtrips is just another reason that I enjoy staying home with the kids. I like being able to help out with school functions and not having to use vacation time to do it. Speaking of, Evan's taken the day off for Elisabeth's next field trip to see Disney's Big Cats. Ebeth is sooooooo excited that Evan actually gets to come and meet her class.