Indoor Safari Park in Flower Mound

Over the summer I saw a Groupon deal for a new play place that looked really fun called Indoor Safari Park in Flower Mound, TX. They have a location in Plano that we plan to visit soon. There just so happened to be Groupon deal for that location the day we visited the Flower Mound one. If you haven't heard of Groupon before, what are you waiting for? They have some great deals - last week I got a $20 Toy's R Us coupon for only $10 and it could be used with other coupons! There is an app for iPhone so you don't even have to print out your coupon - just show your phone and they can scan the barcode. Super easy!

Anyways, yesterday we finally decided to check out this super fun play place. It was Safari themed and there were 3 different play grounds geared toward different ages. There was also a toddler area for kids 6 months - 2 years.

Olivia wanted to play in the big kid play area. This one was for ages 4+.

This was near the toddler area. It was geared towards older toddlers.There was a slide, ball pit, and trampoline in each of the play areas!

With your basic admission (normally $9.99 for kids and adults pay $1) you get a train ride and a robotic animal ride. There are also other packages available (they have things like miniature golf and pottery painting).

There was an area that had about a dozen train tables (they each had a different theme), doll houses, toy kitchens, etc. This was a big hit for my girls! 

Grace has a doll house similar to this (basically a bigger version) but she had so much fun playing with this one.

Grace wasn't too sure about riding a robotic animal but when she saw other kids ride them she could hardly wait for her turn. Anytime another kid rode on one she would run back there to watch. I think she was hoping she would get another turn!

We stayed for a couple of hours but I am sure they would have loved to play all day. I think next time we go we will eat at their little cafe and play all day! We went during the week and it wasn't busy at all. I would guess it would be pretty crowded on the weekends since you can have birthday parties there. 

It's a great place to take your kids when the weather is too yucky for the park!

Just see for yourself how much fun this place is!

Moon Sand

A few months ago I heard about something called Moon Sand from Jen. She made it with her son and it sounded like lots of fun and easy to make. BUT... we were in the middle of moving. Fast forward a bit and we are settled into our new house and needed a fun activity. So Olivia helped me mix up a tub of moon sand.

I put a table cloth in the middle of the kitchen floor to help contain the mess. It probably would have been better to do it outside. 

It was super easy to make! Flour and Baby oil and that is all. I think I put about 8 cups of flour and 1/2 cup of baby oil but I don't remember exactly. I am sure you could just add more flour or oil to make it to the consistency you want.

It is moldable so we used our hands to make mountains!

And I have no idea why I don't have pictures of Grace playing with the moon sand. It probably has something to do with her wanting to have a flour fight when she joined in :)

Duck Pond and Park

Our neighborhood has a lot of parks and several ponds with ducks. This past summer was pretty hot and dry so the ponds were down a lot and it was hard to find the ducks but we finally found some in the front pond. There is also a big playground next to the pond. 

First, we fed all of our bread to the ducks. The girls love to feed the ducks and Olivia is getting pretty good at tearing little pieces off to make her bread last longer.

 

And then we went to play! Olivia thinks she is just as big as all the other kids and climbed to the highest part of the playground.

And then I tried to take Grace's picture at the top of the tube slide hid behind her hand.

Windmill Playground

A few weeks ago we heard about a fun park in a town not to far from us. We had to check it out!

It is the Windmill Playground at Frontier Park in Prosper.

It was warm and they still had the water misters turned on! Of course this was one of Grace's favorite things. There was a small splash pad but we didn't have any extra clothes so we stayed away from that this time.

 There is a section for toddlers that we explored first.

Then we headed over to the area for the bigger kids.

Grace loved the tight rope!

Olivia likes to join the big kids in all the fun and found a little girl and followed her all over. They climbed to the top of the playground and went down this slide over and over!

Recently Grace has been wanting her picture taken every time she finds one of these photo ops. She wasn't too sure about this one at first though because it looked like a BOY! We decided that it must be a girl farmer wearing overalls because she was working in the hay.

And we couldn't leave without swinging!!! 

 

We have been back once and I am sure we will be back lots more.

Dentist

We made it back from NY just in time for Halloween. And after Halloween the girls had a dentist appointment. What great timing, huh?

Grace was so excited to visit the dentist. She took one if her Tinkerbell dolls to watch as she got her teeth cleaned. After she got X-rays of her teeth she wanted to show Tinkerbell the picture on their computer monitor! She sat so still and was such a big girl.

Olivia doesn't really like to have her teeth brushed. She likes to do it herself. But she liked sitting in the chair watching a movie on the iPad. I realized later they had tv's mounted above the chairs and had the Lorax playing the whole time.

Both girls got their picture taken with the huge toothbrush for the "no cavity club" wall.

Hopefully Olivia won't bite the dentist when they go back in 6 months!

Hurricane Sandy

I want to write about this because in a few years it might be funny to look back on.

We were visiting New York right before the hurricane was forecasted to hit. We thought it would hit after we left. We got to where we were staying just North of New York city and saw the news. It was supposed to hit earlier than we had originally saw. It was now scheduled to hit the day we were to fly out.

The next day it looked worse so we decided that instead of having a canceled flight and then waiting on stand-by for another flight we would just rent a car and drive. Monday morning Dustin traded the rental car we had for another one (it was less expensive to do it this way for some reason even though we got the same type of car) then he picked us up and we hit the road.

At one point we decided to take a more northern route even though it was longer to miss some winter weather on the route we had planned to take.

Here is a picture of the weather map of what we were driving through.

 

We drove 16.5 hours the first day and 11 the second day. We were all very glad to get home!

 

West Point

We made the 6 hour drive from Niagara Falls to West Point so we could visit Dustin's old school and see some of his family and friends.

We drove onto West Point Saturday morning for the football game. The first thing we saw when we came in the gate was the new prep school campus. Dustin attended the prep school when it was in New Jersey but it has recently been relocated.

At the game we saw cadets from his old company and got a picture with their mascot - the G4 Guppy!

 

We sat with the band for a little while and it was good to see them doing some of the same things that they were doing when Dustin was there. But the band is very loud so we moved to our seats to watch the game.

We got to spend some time exploring the campus. Grace's favorite part was the leaves of course!

 This is the bridge where Dustin proposed.

 And the fall colors over the reservoir were beautiful.

While Olivia was napping in the car I took some pictures of Grace enjoying all of the leaves that were on the ground.

It was nice to be able to go back after more than 5 years and see good friends and family!

Niagara Falls

Dustin had another business trip. This time he was in Rochester, NY. We decided that I would fly up with the girls at the end of the week and we would make it into a little vacation. 

I headed to the airport with the girls on Thursday and met Dustin in NY. This was the first time the girls had both flown together and they were great on the flight.  Getting into the airport with 2 carseats, the stroller, and our bag and carry-on was the hardest part of the entire trip.

As soon as Dustin was finished on Friday we made the 1.5 hour drive to Niagara Falls. We walked around the American side for a bit.

The girls spotted a gray squirrel! In our part of the country squirrels are brown.

On the American side we could get pretty close to the falls.

 Olivia checking it out

 

Grace had fun trying to catch the falling leaves. She really got to see how leaves change colors and fall off of the tree in the fall.

 

Then we found the bridge and walked to Canada.

 

Our first stop once in Canada was the Hershey store. I think this was Grace's favorite store ever! 

 They picked out some candy as a souvenir.

 

From Canada you could see the entire waterfall! It was really pretty and I think it was probably a great time to be there because we got to see the fall colors as well.

After we saw everything we wanted to see it was time to hit the road.