High Five for Friday

Hi there! I'm linking up with Jennie today to share some fun stuff from the past week.

1) Friday evening, since we had no homework to do, Grant and I made some candy cane bead ornaments to get a jump start on Christmas stuff. The best part is that my mom taught me how to make these when I was kid (crafty, she was not but we had fun) and now I get to make them with Grant.

2) Saturday was my birthday. As soon as I woke up, Grant handed me an envelope that said "Mom" (he calls me Mama). Then he told me "I wrote 'mom' by myself! It's a sight word!" How cute is that? I'm not one to make a big deal out of my birthday but Husband wanted to take me out to breakfast and do a little shopping before we took Grant to a birthday party for one of his friends. Later on we had a movie night and Grant got to see Jurassic World for the first time.

Brunch at Briggs! I love starting the day with a dish the
size of a row boat filled with grits :)

We took Grant to a birthday party at this neat gymnastics
place (that's him on a trampoline about to dive into a foam pit).
What a fun place! He had a great time and I dont' think
he's ever been that tired after a birthday party!

Testing out my birthday present on Sunday!

3) Also over the weekend, my little kitchen helper and I made some chicken & rice soup.

4) I had a dinner date with Grant on Monday! Usually he picks Cracker Barrel for our dates. I guess he's tired of it because it was Moe's this time. He loves when they yell "Welcome to Moe's!"

5) Since I was off work on Wednesday and Grant was off school, Husband took the day off and we went to the Museum of Life & Science in Durham. It's one of our usual places on days off but they recently opened some new tree houses so we were excited to check those out. We had a really great day together!

Up in a tree house!

Even with the new tree houses, "Into the Mist"
is still one of his favorites!

6) Yesterday when I got home from work there was a package from my sister waiting for me. Along with a cute new bag, she also sent me three boxes of my favorite store bought cookies! I love packages with treats from home :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

A Day Out with Thomas & Percy

On Saturday we took Grant to the Day Out with Thomas event at the Transportation Museum. Since we did this last year at Tweetsie Railroad, we thought it might be fun to check it out at a different location. When I went online to get tickets, I saw that you could buy tickets that included a ride with Percy too and as a friend put it...if you're going to drive all that way, you may as well ride Percy too. 

As soon as we got there, Percy was pulling into the station after a ride.

I was so focused on making sure we got there in time for our ride with Thomas...it never occurred to me to check our Percy time. So we got there...saw Percy...took some pictures...and then I found an employee to just find out what we needed to do. She checked our tickets and pointed out that our Percy ride was in 10 minutes!  So we boarded right then. 

So excited :)

It turns out that Percy was pulling the caboose train, which didn't offer much for sight seeing (tiny windows) but Grant really didn't care. He just wanted to ride the train.

At one point along the ride, our guide told us that we would be passing Thomas. Unfortunately we weren't sitting on that side. But the man and his son on the other side of the train offered for us to go over and share their window. He didn't have to ask twice. Grant was over there in two seconds.

I sort of wondered if the man had regretted his offer
because Grant talked their ears off (they were very nice).

The man also pointed out this "911 train" which became
Grant's obsession for the rest of the ride.

Immediately following our Percy ride we had to check in quick to get our wristbands and then head over to the line for our Thomas ride. 

There he is!

And he's pulling all those cars (with some help, of course)

The line moved quick and they were pretty organized. And we somehow got seated in the car right behind Thomas. When we walked into the car Grant said "I can see Thomas' skin!"

Excited to ride with Thomas!

The boy loves a map.

I just love how happy he is :)

So right before the ride starts the guide tells us that we have help Thomas by yelling "All aboard!" So everyone did...and then Thomas blows his whistle...

Grant was excited about hearing Thomas' whistle!

This ride offered better views from bigger windows. They take you back and forth on the tracks in front of the museum.

The roundhouse.

Some other trains out on the tracks.

They told us Percy would be passing us soon.

Hi Percy!

Waving to the people.

He had no desire to wait in line to have his picture
taken with Thomas, this was as close as we got
(behind him is part of line for pictures).

After that, Grant just wanted to check out the museum (convenient, because we did too).

They had a firetruck on display for the kids to check out.

What kid doesn't want to wear a real fireman's helmet?

The Transportation Museum is a really neat place. We had talked about going but this was our first time. So many great buildings filled with great stuff!

One building was just for model trains and all the little things that go with the model trains. There were so many buttons for the kids to push so they could watch all the little models do things! I'm pretty sure Grant pressed every single one.

They had a little Thomas too but I didn't get a
good picture of it.

One building had old cars in it.

The building I was most excited about looked like it was undergoing some repairs so most of it was restricted inside. It was the building that had all the old firetrucks in it (and a plane that Grant could see through the window).

After that, it was on to the roundhouse to check out more trains! So much neat stuff at this place!

From here you can see the turntable that you can ride. Of course,
we had to do that but it was raining so I didn't take pictures.

And we got to see Thomas on one of his last rides of the day.

After that, it was time to start heading back to the car but not before stopping so Grant could run through the hay maze.

I didn't realize how big this place was until we got there. If I had, I would have planned better because we didn't get to see everything. We'll definitely be making plans to go back!

Grant & Mama Day

A couple weeks ago I took a random day off so Grant and I could spend the day together. With his first day of school fast approaching, I knew I wanted to do a Grant & Mama day soon. So I just picked a day and told Grant to pick a place. He always picks the Museum of Life & Science in Durham. Dinosaurs, a train, and you're allowed to touch almost everything...it's like a dream come true. I was pretty excited about going back too. I read about a new play ground they put in and that some new tree houses were going up.

Funny thing about planning this trip...I forgot that it was June. It was HOT (although, I think this keeps the crowd low). Of course, Grant didn't notice. As soon as the doors opened to the outside exhibits, he was ready to go play. First stop being the new play ground.

Husband always calls him a monkey and this monkey
was more than happy to climb all over that stuff!

After the climbing we moved on to their barnyard animals. This exhibit was really smelly that day, especially with the heat. I don't typically pay too much attention to animal smells but it was hard not to. Even Grant felt the need to announce "Yuck! Something POOPED!" But while in the barnyard exhibit, Grant found some saddles to play cowboy with. He asked me to take his picture for Daddy.

Yeehaw!

We moved on to the "bug house" after that. Grant loves all the creepy-crawlies in there. On our way in I saw a bunch of black-eyed susans. They were my mom's favorite flower, it always brightens my day when I see them!

Bees!

Huge cockroaches (or "coproaches")

Some fish in a little pond that's inside the butterfly room

We still had some time to kill before our train ride so we wandered up to the dinosaur trail. This was all Grant talked about on our drive to the museum!

Telling this Albertosaurus that he needs to be nice

ROAR!!!!!

Can you tell he's sticking his tongue out at me?

And then we wandered down to the wetlands are to hunt for turtles.

And we found some! A lot, actually.

Grant & Mama Day selfie! (I hate that word)
I don't think we'd ever been this sweaty but
we were enjoying our day together!

The bears and wolves exhibits are down near the wetlands so we tried to get a peek a them but they were all hiding. It was too hot for them too! So we circled back to wait for the train.

Train happy!

After our train ride and some lunch, we headed toward the "Catch the Wind" stuff. Grant vaguely remembered this from last year. He had so much fun in it, I don't know how he forgot. But when we got closer to the exhibit, it came back to him.  Before changing into his water clothes, we played with this seed dropper thing (I don't remember what it's called) since no one was there. It's like a big crane that drops oversized seeds so you can see how the wind takes them. Grant loved running around trying to catch the "seeds" as they fell.

So then he got changed and hit The Mist!

You wouldn't think that it will get you as wet as it does
(especially if you get down on your hands and knees like
Grant did and stick your face right in a mist sprayer).

(This one seemed a little dangerous to me...those
stones/steps were a little slippery!)

We spent a while in the mist. Besides the all the places that has mist coming out of  the ground, there are neat tunnels for the kids to explore (and get dirty, since now they're wet). It's such a fun part of the museum! 

Across from the mist, there is a spot tucked back in the woods with these mounted drum type things. You use them to shoot air at this shiny thing (for lack of a better word) and watch how it moves. We had a lot of fun there too (especially when Grant figured out where to aim and how hard to hit the drum)!

Next to the mist they've got a little pond with sailboats, so Grant tried that out (it didn't work out well).

After all that...I was ready to go. We stopped by the lemur habitat:

And then headed back toward the main part of the museum (and the exit). But Grant couldn't resist some more play time on the now empty playground.

We wandered around a little inside the main building.

Fun interactive wall

They have some animals inside, too, so we checked those out and then played with some of the hands-on stuff they've got going on in there. After some time inside, it was time to head home. I feel like he and I go to this museum a lot but he never gets tired of it. The new tree houses that will be opening some time this year. With Grant going to kindergarten this year, I told him that we'll try to go back to see the tree houses this fall when we both have a day off. We always have so much fun, I'm looking forward to going back!

Grant loves the "rocket ship" at the entrance.