Josh Visits

My brother, Josh, came out for a visit last week.  He is getting ready to start a new job, so he decided to use up his remaining vacation time from his old job and come see us!  Yeah!  He arrived Monday night and stayed until Sunday evening.  We did a lot of hanging out at my house (which suited us just fine), but also got out to do a few fun things.  It was a good balance for what we wanted.

 

On Wednesday we went to some fossil beds.  These are pretty neat. 

Logan and Annie had a good time climbing on the rocks until Logan slipped and cut his leg.  Oh the drama!  He recovered and we went on our merry way.

It was the warmest day of that week (actually the last really warm day we've had) and we were feeling pretty hot on those fossil beds.  So we finished that and walked over to the river where there was shade.  The kids waded for a while and then we found a place to have a picnic and a little hike.

After our hike we decided to check out the visitor's center at that particular park.  It was actually worthwhile.  They even let us bring the dog inside.  We watched a short documentary about the floods that had uncovered the fossil beds and checked out the stuffed wildlife they had on display.  The kids came away with coloring books and other goodies.  They also had some activities for the kids.

On Thursday we decided to go to the Children's Museum.  We were really glad we'd enjoyed the outdoors the day before because it was cold and rainy this day.  The kids earned passes to the museum through their reading program this summer.  Logan worked really hard at his reading specifically to earn this pass.  So this was a big deal.

Our first stop was the grocery store.  All three kids enjoyed loading up their carts.

Josh was their cashier.

The hospital was the next exciting stop.  I loved the tiny scrubs Annie put on.

Logan was pretty excited about the x-ray room this time.

Alex spent most of his time taking care of the babies.

Our third stop was the post office.  We skipped this last year, so it was pretty exciting.

I couldn't get them to stand still for a picture.  Each room in the children's museum has its own mailbox, so they were running everywhere delivering mail.

We then headed over to the laws of motion room.  The kids assembled race cars and raced them down the track.  We also enjoyed the golf ball roller coaster and other tracks.

This picture is super blurry...sorry.  They also loved the train track in this room.

Next was the aviation area.  Josh particularly loved this room.  He spent a long time trying out the flight simulators.  These wind tunnels were new this year and very fun.  We could put balls and scarves in them and watch them race around before popping out at the end.  They were so fast I couldn't get a picture of them IN the tubes.

Alex loved the mini planes.

After that we went to the pizza shop.  The kids had such fun pretending to make the pizzas and serve us.  It made Josh crave pizza which resulted in him buying us pizza for dinner on the way home later.  :)

There were a few more rooms that I didn't take pictures of.  (It became a long day for the grown-ups.)

We did discover a new train room.  There was a cool electric train on display, as well as another play track.

We couldn't miss the Lego room.

 

We made a quick stop in the music room (Josh and I were losing stamina).

Last, we made some projects in the art room, so we left with wet projects.  Next time we go we really need to go to the art room first.  :)  It was a really fun outing.  The kids never decided it was time to move to another room; that was always our decision.  They could play in any one of those rooms all day!

Jim took the day off of work on Friday (although he ended up working at home all morning...) to spend time with Josh.  We hung out all morning and had an impromtu extended birthday for Logan.  He had some packages arrive from Jim's family, so he had another round of present opening.  He was super excited about these gifts and couldn't wait to start building.  So that afternoon while we packed for camping, he started assembling his rocket/launch pad kit. 

 

We camped that night with some other families.  It was at a park we'd never been to, and was a really great spot.  They'd reserved a group campsite that was no where near the main campground, so we had it all to ourselves.  The kids ran wild while the adults visited and then almost everyone slept okay.  (I was the exception, but I rarely sleep well on a campout.)  We lounged around the next morning before finally packing up. 

I didn't take any pictures of the camping part, but I did think to pull out my camera when we found this observation tower on our way out of the park.

We were good and tired (okay, maybe I was good and tired) when we arrived home that afternoon.  After quickly bathing everyone and mostly unpacking, I crashed.  Much to my surprise Jim and Josh decided to go out for ice cream at that point.  Logan didn't want to go with them because he was finishing his Legos, so Annie had her uncle and her dad all to herself (Alex was also napping).  Jim and Josh always like to have some guy time when we get together, and Annie loves the attention, so it was good for them.

Partway into my nap, I awoke to horrible sobbing.  I thought Logan had hurt himself.  He was just frustrated with his Legos; he was more tired than we knew!  He soon fell asleep for a much needed nap.  After he woke, he finished his Lego set in no time!

We hung out on Saturday night and Sunday morning.  Josh came to church with us and then we took him to the airport.  It was a very nice visit.  I'm so glad Josh was able to come see us!