A Day Off From School

Since Amelia and Ashley go to a Charter School, they don't necessarily follow the same schedule as all the other kids around us who are in the District.  This can work to our advantage.  On Friday, the 9th, they were out of school so I decided that we should take a trip to the Dinosaur Museum.  I was crossing my fingers that there would be no school groups there or other large groups.  It worked out great!  I don't think we have been since Elliot was a baby so it was long overdue.  Essentially, this was Elliot's first trip since he didn't remember his first time and this was Micah's first experience.  For some crazy reason, I went on the expedition solo.  I was later chastised for not calling my mom and inviting her.  Oops.

When we arrived, Ashley was all the sudden frightened to go in.  I spent a good 5-10 minutes convincing her to go in.  We had just driven all the way up there and I had no Plan B for the day and was not about to just turn around and go home.  I told her that if she was scared of anything, she could just look down at her feet and we would hurry and get away from it.

We started off checking out the exhibits that were all about motion.  Amelia was really interested in everything, Ashley was still acting reserved about the whole thing, Elliot was happy to follow Amelia around, and Micah was just along for the ride.

Ashley really enjoyed all the hands-on exhibits so we spent the majority of our time at those.  She especially loved the giant magnetic wall with the dinosaur bone puzzles.  And since it was not at all crowded, we stayed there for quite a while so that she could finish a puzzle.  All the kids really loved the erosion table.  Once again, not crowded so the kids got to play to their little hearts content.  However, it was getting close to lunch time, so I cut play time a little short.  Also, this was Elliot's first big trip out of the house since being potty trained.  Since bathrooms aren't easily accessible at the museum, I knew our time was limited.  And we still had to go to the dinosaur bone dig and I knew they would want to spend time there as well.

Amelia was nervous to stand by the shark which Elliot picked up on and so he didn't want to stand there either.  Ashley sat against the wall as far away from the shark as she could be.  That was fine with me.  The kids also got a chance to talk to a real life paleontologist.  Amelia thought that was the best thing ever.  She could have talked to him all day if he had the time.  The kids kept talking all about Dinosaur Train and Ice Age.  I just had to laugh.  Luckily, this guy was really patient and listened to everything that they had to say.

Once we left the museum, we went to lunch at Arby's, the kids favorite place to go.  It was such a fun day!  Hopefully it has built my confidence a little in taking all four kids on a field trip by myself.  I'm hoping that we can do a lot more fun things this summer.  I've already got our next trip forming in my brain.