In order to get on the train I had to collapse the stroller and try to manhandle it onto the train. Not very easy when I am also trying to keep track of four very active kids. We finally all got settled onto the train. We sat right behind the controls to the train so Matthew was focused on watching how the controls worked during our whole train ride.
All around the area they had everything set up like an old time pioneer settlement. We checked out the little school house. The kids went and sat down. The boys were supposed to sit on one side and girls on the other. Sarah didn't care she just wanted to sit by her brothers and no amount of coaxing would get her to change sides. She just thinks she is one of the boys. I guess that's what happens when you are the only girl with four brothers!
They also showed the different punishments for kids that disobeyed. Of course Josh got chosen and he got to wear the Dunce cap. He rather enjoyed it so I am glad they don't punish that way nowadays. It would be a little less effective for Josh!
We got to check out the inside of a large tee pee. The kids loved listening to the Indian woman speaking about their way of life back then.
We visited the blacksmith's shop and watched him make some chain links. It was really interesting. It was a little loud for Matthew's liking so he had his ears plugged with his fingers for a lot of the demonstration. I could have watched that for hours it was so interesting. It was rather warm inside the blacksmith's shop though with the hot fire. After a while the kids got restless so we decided to move on to the next exhibit.
We headed over to the petting corral. First thing Sarah found a goat and followed him around the whole pen trying to make him eat the wood chips from the ground. The goat kept trying to get away from her, but she is one stubborn girl and followed him anyway. For some reason he didn't want to eat those wood chips and Sarah couldn't figure out why....I had to chuckle to myself watching her just trying to get that goat to eat.
She is still following that poor goat:
The kids loved seeing the baby lambs. Matthew, Josh and Sarah loved petting them, Daniel (who is afraid of anything with four legs) stayed far away.
They each got a turn to ride a horse. Here's Josh:
Sarah:
Matthew:
Daniel it isn't his favorite thing to ride the horse, but he did it:
For going on the free day we each got a free ice cream cone. Here we are waiting in the long line to get our ice cream cones:
I brought fruit snacks for Daniel to eat since he can't eat the ice cream. I was trying to help everyone get settled in eating their ice cream so I just let Daniel get into the diaper bag to get his own fruit snacks. He must have thought he could eat as many fruit snacks as possible because he really went to town. I finally stopped him after two packages and he was quite upset. He didn't understand why I wouldn't let him eat the whole box of fruit snacks--crazy kid!!As the day went on the place got a lot more busy. It was getting harder and harder to keep track of all the kids. Sarah also refused to sit in the stroller anymore which complicated things quite a bit. Since she wasn't using the stroller I took Noah out of the front pack and put him in the stroller. My back gave a huge sigh of relief!! After the ice cream we rode the train over to the ship area. Of course in getting on the train I had to take Noah out of the stroller and collapse it down. When we got to our stop I had to wrestle to stroller out, get it set up and strap Noah inside it. In the time it took me to strap Noah in the kids were gone. As soon as the train stopped they took off toward the ship area and didn't wait for me to get settled. I tried to go and track them all down, but it was hard since there were so many people at this point. It took me about 45 minutes to track all of them down and get them to stay in one place. Luckily, Noah wasn't mobile and Matthew stayed right with me--thank goodness. At one point I had found Daniel, but Josh and Sarah were still missing. I told Daniel to stay right with Matthew and Noah while I took a turn to go and look for them. I got on the ship and walked all over it to find Sarah clear down in the most bottom part of the ship. She had crawled on top of a bunk bed and couldn't get down. She had also taken care of business in her diaper which had stunk up the whole bottom part of the ship. I grabbed her and brought her back only to find Daniel had taken off somewhere else. I was getting frustrated and so by the time I had rounded all of the kids up and got them to stay in one place I decided it was time to leave. Whoa, by the time we got home I was exhausted. Aaron got home from work and asked me how the day was. I told him it was a little crazy, but the kids seemed to have fun. He then asked me if I had had fun. I told him I was way to busy trying to keep track of everyone to take time to have fun. I think I have a good idea of what herding cats is like!! However, I think herding cats would have been a lot easier than herding five kids--and that's even including one child who isn't even mobile yet!! I think I will be in real trouble when Noah becomes mobile!! Overall even if it was exhausting it was still a fun day.
1 comment:
You are super brave & super mom to do these things with five kids! Way to go!! :) Good luck with the rest of the summer...
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