Dinosaur World on Spring Break...............

I feel kind of bad for Little Buddy.  This week has been his spring break and frankly he has not done a whole lot.  I have been working, my husband has also so little one has been home just hanging out.  I am not saying he did not need some down time because I think he did.  He has been playing and doing a lot of his math program for school on the computer.  Still we needed to do something different and a bit memorable, especially because his writing assignment this week is, "Describe something fun you did on Spring Break."  That put the pressure on.

I decided to take him over to Dinosaur World, which is located between Tampa and Orlando.  It was Mr. 21's favorite place to visit when he was little.  I swear I must have taken him there 10 times.  He would only wear dinosaur shirts to school for kindergarten and first grade.  Max was a puppy then and would run after Mr. 21 and grab him by the shirt.  There were little holes in all of them from his puppy teeth.  I had to keep sewing them up, frankly I thought the school was going to hand us a bag of shirts because he looked so hopeless in all his repaired ones.  Anyway.............back to today.

I surprised Little Buddy with this awesome adventure this morning.  He was a bit anxious and was not too sure about it at first.  He told me he had never wanted to go to Dinosaur World when we pulled up.  But once inside he calmed down and looked around.  

It has grown so much in the 10+ years it has been since my last visit.  There is a new entrance, gift shop, two playgrounds and a ton of seating for lunch or a snack.  There were also several new additions to the dinosaur collection in the newer areas of the park.

All dinosaurs are life size and I might add very impressive.  You can't touch them and they don't move, still you can read about them and learn what they ate, how big they were and when they lived.

There were several educational areas where you could learn about dinosaurs, guess which dinosaur was in the special space by touch, there were fossil digs,  and you could pretend you were a Paleontologist and sweep sand off of a full dinosaur skeleton.  Well a plastic one anyway.

They had a little gem mine you could mine for all sorts of fun little crystals.  Little Buddy liked to take them out and put them in a bag but was not interested in putting the screen into the water and shaking the dirt out.  He told me his hands do not like touching dirty water, so mine had to.

When you see how big dinosaurs were it is pretty amazing.  

Although this little one was tricked into smiling in this photo he was a bit of a crab on our adventure.  There were loads of families there and at least one school with many kindergartners.  It was crowded and he still is not the best driver with his walker.  He often veers right into the middle of the sidewalk, right into pedestrian traffic.  With all the little ones and strollers all on the sidewalk it was a bit difficult to navigate.  And there was a LOT of walking, and it was warm, and it was a new experience and that all adds up to a cranky boy.

So even though we left before lunchtime this is what happened on the way home.  I am so happy he fell asleep because the last five miles of the journey took us an hour and ten minutes because there was an accident right outside the entrance to my subdivision.  Once I was stuck in that traffic there was no way to go around it.  We finally got home, had lunch and now he is happily playing with the new dinosaurs and red jeep he picked out as a special treat.  Oh to be a little boy and have a big day!  At least now he has something to write about for school.

Thank you for all of your kind words about my work situation.  I really try to be a good person and do what is right.  My parents instilled that in us and it isn't always easy but it is the right thing to do.  Especially when children are concerned, their safety is more important than anything.  Still some decisions are not always easy to make, but sleeping at night with a clear conscious is. 

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  After writing up one more re-evaluation I am free from all work responsibilities for two whole days, weeeeeeee!