Fun at Fair Park!

March 4:

This was a great family fun day! We headed down to downtown Dallas for the first time, to Fair Park. We discovered it is named this because it is the location of the state fair each year, and has a huge permanent ferris wheel, named the Texas Star, towering over the grounds. When we arrived, we discovered that this weekend was Irish Fest, which sounded fun until we noticed that every ad for it spoke of large volumes of beer being consumed. So we stuck with our plan to go to the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science and Children's Museum. A good choice because it was way more kid-friendly, and it was FREE! (Thank you, Tellus Science Museum reciprocity!)

When we were finished touring both buildings of the museum, we strolled around the Lagoon at Fair Park and watched the turtles and the swan paddle boats. It was a very pretty and relaxing was to spend the afternoon!

After all that fun stuff, we were sure hungry! Aile really wanted Italian food, so we did a quick search, only to find our two favorite Italian restaurants! Maggiano's and Buca di Beppo! So we decided we should treat the kids to the Buca experience. It was superb. Sean has pics of the total splurge dessert we had on his phone, so I will try to add those to this post sometime...

Ice Skating Lessons!

March 1:

Another first accomplished for Aile and Brenner today! Neither one had ever been on ice skates before, but today we started lessons at the local ice arena! Fun! Aile loves to rollerblade, so she picked it up pretty quickly. Brenner was a bit more shaky for a while there, but still said it was "SO AWESOME!" and can't wait to go again next week. :)

It was hard to get good pics, and I tried to get video too, but here's a few shots I snapped to give an idea of what it was like:

I couldn't convince Caelum to sign up for the lessons--and believe me, I tried SO hard to convince him! But as soon as he saw the little tikes in their hockey gear skating out there, he was ready to join! But too late--registration was closed! Bummer! But he still had a blast playing with cars and airplanes on the bleachers with a smile...

This picture is actually from the 2nd week of lessons, but I love it and the love they are showing here! :)

Leap Day!

February 29:

Today we decided to celebrate thus day that only comes around once every 4 years. :) We added Leap Day Olympics to our school agenda, and had a blast seeing how well we could do at such activities as Leap Frog, Long Jump, Jump Rope, Obstacle Course, and High Jump!

Here are the kids, leaping for Leap Day! :)

Rice Krispy Astronomy

February 27:

Our Astronomy book gave us a fun--and yummy--assignment today. :) We were instructed to make Rice Krispy Earths! We used a piece of a fruit roll for the center "core", wrapped it with a thick layer of Rice Krispy treat for the "mantle", and topped it off with a thin layer of Nutella "crust"! We ended up with quite a bit of the Rice Krispy mixture, so we ended up making several more planets, and one large sun. (However, the "sun" was also covered in Nutella, so it must've been an eclipse...) ;)

Here's our mini solar system and our Earths:

Dallas Zoo

February 26:
Family Fun Day again! :) This was the last Sunday that the Zoo had winter prices, and since it was not at all winter weather (mid to high 60's), we decided to take the opportunity! It was a huge place, with a great carousel and children's zoo, and a good variety of neat animals. But the best part was how up-close-and-personal you could get with some of them! The trainers had taught the male lions to stand up against the glass and say hello. That was neat! And it was also fun to see the elephants reaching their trunks within feet of us to grab pieces of apple. But my favorite part was the giraffes. Wow. Take a look at some of our pics...

Like I said--AWESOME giraffes! Here are some more pics of our fun day!

Sharing Music and New Friends

Once again, I forgot all about taking pictures... One of these days, I'll learn! Anyway, today after church and potluck, we went on the Nursing Home Ministry. They've been visiting this facility for 30 years, and everyone in the place treats them like family! We had such fun going around to the rooms and singing the residents' favorite songs! Aile started asking if we could come back next month after only about 20 minutes! :) And bonus: the church volunteers also run a small ice cream parlor on the weekends they visit, so we all got free ice cream too! :)

Celebration!

February 24:

So someone at church told us about a park in Allen, TX, about 15 minutes away, that is so big you can "lose your child in it." I can't say that statement really made me want to go there, but... it sure sounded fun to the kids! :) So, picnic in hand, we ventured out to find it today.

Oh yeah. It's true. It's the hugest park I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of parks. We pretty much had a blast. And the fun will only be doubled come May 1--that's when the splash pad part opens. :)

Here are some pics of the monstrosity that is Celebration Park: