Star Spangled 4th

We had a busy weekend for the fourth!  National Instruments gives two paid holidays for the 4th of July, so Troy was home with us Thursday and Friday. 

On Thursday we took Ethan to the Children's Museum and he had a great time exploring.  After spending the morning there, we went across the street to the park and ate our picnic, then he and Daddy walked over to the pond to fish for some "gooey fish" (that's a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse thing.)

 Painting on the windows

 Making an airplane

 Flying his plane

 His favorite... Giant Light Bright!

Fishing with Daddy

Friday morning we went to Inner Space Cavern and did the cave tour.  Ethan was mildly impressed, but more so with the giant wooly mammoth in the gift shop area.  Emily did pretty good in the cave too.  She slept the entire time until about 20 min before the end of the tour at which point she quickly spiraled out of control :)

Then on Saturday (the 4th) we went with Gabby, Peepaw, Memaw and Aunt Cindy to the festival in Georgetown.  Ethan had a grand time!  He was obsessed with the bunnies at the petting zoo and the ponies.  He has asked to ride a pony several times before but then gets scared when its his turn, so we were shocked and proud that he actually rode these ponies twice.  Then he also rode the swings, the train, the ferris wheel and played in a bounce house.  He has asked us several times since then, to go back to the park with the bunnies and ponies.  Its difficult for him to understand that the animals do not live there all the time.

We let him stay up this year to watch the fireworks, but he didn't enjoy them as much as I'd hoped he would.  The whole time he was telling us that we should go inside.  We tried giving him ear plugs but they wouldn't stay in so we gave him some earmuffs but he didn't like those, so we settled on some headphones.  He seemed okay then sitting in Gabby's lap, but afterwards he told us that he doesn't want any more fireworks.  Maybe next year he will be more impressed and less scared.

On Sunday, we were SO tired but we had promised Ethan a baseball game for filling his sticker chart, so we packed up our stuff and headed out to the ballpark to round out the weekend.  Fortunately for Troy and I, Ethan was ready to go after 4th inning so we didn't have to stay out there too late.  We enjoyed some ballpark food, cotton candy, the playscape and a FEW minutes of baseball.

Whew... it was a jam packed weekend but we enjoyed all the family time and Ethan enjoyed being on the go constantly.  Every night he asks me, "Mom, where are we going tomorrow?"  He loves to go go go!