Return to Dutch Wonderland

Last year Barb and I took the kids to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to see the Amish.  While we were there, we took the kids to a little amusement park called Dutch Wonderland.  I absolutely loved everything about the Lancaster area, and vowed that I would return again this year.  So, once again Barb and I loaded up the kids and made the drive to Lancaster.  We weren't alone- Brian and Poppy decided to come, too.  I guess they didn't want to miss out on all the fun two years in a row.  Just like last year, we saw lots of Amish working the fields with their horses on the drive in and once again I was in awe at the beauty of this area of the country.  After an early lunch, we made a bee line for Dutch Wonderland.  This is one of Amusement Today's golden ticket recipients for "top 5" parks for kids.  It really is a nice park for young kids.  We spent a couple of hours riding the rides.  The kids were tall enough to ride everything this year- including the large "Kingdom Coaster".  We even got Poppy on some of the rides.  The kids also saw Princess Brooke and Prince Patrick (who has apparently died his hair brown- it was blonde last year...hmmm).   It was too cold to go to the water play area, but the kids still had a great time.  Dutch Wonderland definitely delivered- again. 

The National Mall

 By the time we left the Natural History Museum, it was getting pretty late.  Since we were right there at the National Mall, we decided to walk around and let the kids check it out.  Olivia was confused by the word "mall" and kept asking where the stores were.  We had to tell her it wasn't that type of "mall".  Since the Washington Monument was the largest thing around, we started walking toward it.  We kept going and saw the new World War II Memorial.  It was cool to be here on this day because the following day was June 6th,  D-day.  It looked like they were setting up for something in the grassy area by this memorial.  We didn't go down to the Lincoln Memorial because the reflecting pool was being renovated and they had blocked off a lot of the sidewalks.  Instead we walked toward the White House, but we couldn't get that close because there was some kind of event taking place.  We could see a lot of people milling about on the lawn, and there were snipers on the roof.  As we were walking toward the White House,  Brian commented that it looked like the President was having a party (to which Olivia whined "Mama, I don't want to go to that party").  Don't worry, Olivia, I doubt we're invited.  We ended up having supper at the Hard Rock and were surprised to see that it was right next to Ford's Theater.  We hadn't planned to see that, so we didn't go in.  It didn't look like it was open anyway.  Still, we were excited to see the outside of this historic building.  This turned out to be a nice afternoon, and we were so glad to have Brandon as our personal tour guide.
 

 

The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

After we left the zoo last Tuesday, we met up with Uncle Brandon and he showed us the "sights" in Washington D.C.  Our first stop was the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.  Brian and I both loved visiting this museum as kids, and I think Olivia and Owen liked it, too.  We didn't go through the stuffed mammal area because we had spent the whole morning at the zoo seeing live animals.  Instead, we focused on the Ocean, Gemstone, Egypt, and Fossil (dinosaur) areas.  The kids enjoyed seeing all of the exhibits.  Olivia especially liked the "gem" gallery.  She wanted me to take a picture of every crown, necklace, and precious stone in the room.  I think she was mentally making a list of things to ask for for her birthday- like that will happen.  I practically had to drag her out of that section of the museum.  I wish that we would have had more time in D.C.- I would have liked to visit the Air and Space Museum.  Oh, well.  I guess there's always next year.

 

The National Zoo

Uncle Brandon is currently completing an intership in Washington D.C. as part of his Master's degree program, so while we were in Delaware last week we made a day trip to D.C. to visit him on his "home turf".  Since we weren't meeting up with him until early afternoon, we decided to pass our morning at the National Zoo.  This zoo is run by the Smithsonian Institute and is free (my preferred price range).  This was an excellent zoo.  The exhibits were large- probably the largest I've ever seen in a zoo, and there was a wide variety of animals.  Brian and I commented several times that they had animals at this zoo that we'd never seen before.  The premier exhibit at the zoo was the Giant Panda exhibit.  The National Zoo is one of only four zoos in the U.S. that has Pandas, so there were lots of people at this exhibit .  We enjoyed many different areas of the park- including the Great Ape and Large Cat exhibits.  I don't know why, but the kids always love the reptile house, so spent quite a bit of time here.  I really liked the way that the zoo was organized because anmials were grouped by their similarity to each other (birds, small mammals, large cats, etc...) and not by where they are found geographically. Here are some pictures from the zoo.

Crabbing

While we were in Dover, we went crabbing with Uncle Brandon.  Well, Brian and the kids went crabbing- I just stood around and took pictures.  The kids each held a string with a chicken neck on it.  I got so tickled as the kids tried to lure the crabs close enough to the shore so that they could be caught with the net.  No crabs were caught this way.  We did catch a few using the crab trap, though.   

Delaware Trip 2012

We've just returned from our annual trip to Delaware.  A lot happened during the week, so I've created a "top 10" (in no particular order) of things that we experienced.  I'm also including some pictures that were taken throughout the week.

10 cool things about our recent trip to Delaware:

1.  Spending time with Poppy and Nana:  The kids had such a great time "helping" Nana in the kitchen and "helping" Poppy walk the dogs.

2.  The dogs:  Bear, Duke, and Penny-No-Tail have probably never received so much attention in their lives.

3.  The weather:  Low 70s all week long. 

4.  Uncle Brandon visits:  Uncle Brandon visited for the weekend and the kids had so much fun with him.  He brought with him a set of golf clubs for the kids, and they enjoyed playing with those.

5.  Fireflies:  These bugs were everywhere, and the kids enjoyed catching them.

6.  Visiting Uncle Mike and Aunt Connie:  We were so excited to see them, and they took us to a place with the BEST ice-cream ever.

7.  No sales tax:  Which we took advantage of by purchasing new computers.

8.  Celebrating Grandma's (Barb's mom) 94th birthday

9.  Game of Thrones:  Brandon introduced us to this series and we became addicted.  We watched episodes on-demand every night after the kids went to bed.

10.  Day trips:  We took a few day trips from Dover, and I will be doing seperate posts for many of these.

 

 

 

The Mets and The Bombers

Owen and Olivia both played t-ball again this year.  They were in two different leagues because of their ages.  This meant that we had two practices and two games to attend each week.  Sometimes both kids would play at the same times on different fields, so it took a little more work for Brian and I to get everyone where they needed to be on time.  Owen played for the Mets in the 3/4 year old division.  The kids in this division use the tees to hit the ball.  Brian was the coach for Owen's team.  Owen did a much better job this year than he did last year.  Last year, Owen fussed the whole time and didn't want to do anything but bat.  This year, though, Owen really got into it and enjoyed playing in the field as well as batting.  Olivia played for the Bombers in the 5/6 year old age division.  In this league, each kid gets three pitches from the coach.  If the kid doesn't hit the ball, then they get to use the tee.  Olivia had to use the tee most of the time, but she did get a few hits from the pitches.  Both kids enjoyed playing and received a little trophy after the last game.