Finishing off last weekend...

We just finished up a second consecutive fun weekend with Carter and me + a friend of mine, but I still haven't gotten back around to finishing up last weekend!  With all of the election stuff, and a busy end to the week, and who knows what else, it just hasn't happened.  Hopefully I'll have some breathing room this week!  Just in time to get a little caught up before Thanksgiving, and then obviously Christmas season will be on and all bets will be off.  I panicked a little bit this morning just thinking about the Christmas season being only about 10 days away.  I always hope to have a better head start, but alas, doesn't look like this will be the year, either.  On the bright side, having two fun weekends in early November has made the stretch from Halloween to Thanksgiving a little more tolerable. It seems like the anticipation leading up to Thanksgiving and what follows leaves me with some anxiety, and these weeks usually seem to drag enough to make things extra intolerable.  But with two fun weekends and enough stuff in the middle to keep things interesting, it hasn't been bad.  By next Monday I'll probably be itching to get the show on the road, but for now, I'm fine!

I left off with us having a fun but busy travel/museum day Friday.  On Saturday we had a lazy morning around the house, a quick lunch, and then Heather, Carter and I headed out to the Discovery Center, a kid-friendly museum that's a little like Strong Museum but on a smaller scale.  Heather has worked there in the summers, so she was a great tour guide!  We couldn't resist a photo op right inside the lobby, though!

Inside, the museum was in essence one big space that had been divided into various rooms and stations covering a variety of subjects.  In the middle was a giant climbing structure, an upstairs treehouse station with nature-related activities, and a crawl tunnel that connected opposite sides of the space.  I caught this shot of Carter through a little window as he began his way through the tunnel.

He sat in a pirate ship...

...and decided to play banker.  He loved being the bank teller, and Heather was making out quite well with her withdrawal!

There was a microphone speaker system to talk through the glass, an iPad with a money app, a security camera, a drawer full of play money, and a counter with deposit slips, withdrawal slips, and checks.

There was a whole section about bees, and Carter liked the bee puppets.  I know this picture is blurry, but I couldn't resist!

There was a fire truck to climb into...

and drive!

In a room with tools and a train track, among other creative building toys, Carter was fascinated with this setup where you could create ramps for a ball to roll down by sticking plastic slats into grooves.

Here's a look over part of the middle space, toward the mini-grocery store and pirate ship.

Another room had a fighter plane cockpit.  Carter had to wait patiently through a couple kids to get his turn, but he thought it was pretty cool!

That room also had a hot air balloon basket!

After wandering past a sports section with equipment to try on, a dental clinic, and the back end of an ambulance, we settled into an art area with spaces to draw and play with magnetic building tiles.

Up on the climbing structure, which Carter loved, I had a view of the bank, the puppet theater, and parts of the grocery store and fire station.

In another section, Heather and Carter tried to do the weather forecast!

Here's a view of the climbing structure (and the tunnel is in the base), as well as the Chinese restaurant that had a hearty supply of play food.

Carter popped into the puppet theater, and the shark and alligator show was pretty irresistible!

We visited the grocery store and did some shopping...

...then headed over to put Heather in a giant bubble!

 

 

 Carter played with the boats in the river and locks setup...

...and then we headed to the restaurant to get served some dinner.  Check out the mustard that pretended to squirt out!

We went back to the house (nap by Carter on the way), and had a nice evening at home.  Carter got a little antsy, so Heather brought up a bin of her old toys, and he loved looking through them.  There were lots of Fisher-Price classics, and Carter took a liking to this little wind-up music player.  He liked it so much that he fell asleep holding it.  After sleeping on the floor the previous night, I actually really enjoyed snuggling him in bed that night.  This time won't last much longer, you know.

The next morning we went to church, and then headed to a real Chinese restaurant (a buffet, this time) for lunch.  Carter stuck with the American foods, but it was a nice change of pace since Chinese buffets aren't usually on our radar these days.  Yum!  After that we packed up and headed out.  The drive home wasn't quite as scenic, partly because the leaves on our route had fallen and partly because it was dark about halfway through the trip thanks to the time change.  But we made it home for dinner and it was back to work for a second consecutive four-day work week...which if you ask me, is exactly what it should be!  And at the end of that week would be another fun weekend--this time with my college roommate, Geneseo, and a concert!  One lucky girl :)