Overnight Adventure

Avery and I went for a very exciting overnight adventure yesterday!  At first I was a bit nervous to go all by myself with a two-year old, but we had so much fun and I would definitely do it again.

Sleepy Avery and Auntie Kissie :)

We headed out in the morning on Thursday and stopped at Aunt Chris's house (or, as Avery calls her "Auntie Kissie!") for a little visit and early lunch.  Avery enjoyed seeing her house and was quite amused by her two cats - Lila and Sophie.  Apparently we don't spend enough time around cats, because when he walked in and saw one of them, he exclaimed "dog!" I think the cat considered that an insult!  ;)


Then we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to London.  We went to Grammy and Grampy's house for a visit.  Grampy was stuck in St. Thomas waiting for Noel to get finished work (so he could drive him back to London to visit with us) but Grammy and Avery and I had a great time in the afternoon.

Trying out the yummy raspberry frozen yogurt Grammy made

Fun for Avery = exercise for Grammy

Grammy had the great idea to go to a wading pool in a nearby park.  It was 43 degrees with the humidex!  The water was lovely and there was a nice big tree covering about a third of the pool with shade.  And there was a breeze, so it was altogether quite bearable.
 Until my son decided that needed to go play on the playground.  In the blazing hot sun.  So we followed him.  Grammy was a great sport - she pushed in him the swings and helped him do the climbers and caught him at the bottom of the slides.

Slide!

Tried to get Avery to go on this swing because it was in the shade, but he was not convinced

Grammy bringing Avery back to the wading pool

 We kept trying to convince him to go back to the wading pool (where all the other children were) and succeeded by making a game of throwing him in there.

More fun in the wading pool

 Eventually we somehow hit on the best game of all - Grammy and I made "bridges" by standing with our legs apart, and Avery swam/crawled through and around our legs.  Took much less effort on our part.

Best game ever

Building a tower and watching it go :crash bang boom!"

 We stopped to get pizza on the way home and Uncle Matt and Aunt Becca came down to eat it with us.  Then Grampy and Noel came home.  Avery was very excited to see them.  Grampy had purchased some of those little foam airplanes that I used to have when I was little (Noel too) and he showed Avery how they flew.  Avery wasn't so great at flying them but he enjoyed going to get them after they had flown.  He also had a unfortunate habit of crunching them and bending them in places they weren't meant to be bent, so Noel had to head in to get some tape to do emergency repairs.  That's when they discovered the "stick tape on each other game".  Good times!  And Uncle Matt brought out his remote control helicopter and Avery was immediately memorized.  Noel showed him how to make it fly (with some help, I think) and Avery loved watching it go in the air... and inevitably crash back down to the ground.

Grampy showing Avery the foam planes

hhmmmm... how do you fly this thing?

Playing the "tape game" with Daddy

Sticking tape on Daddy

The helicopter

Daddy helping Avery fly the helicopter

Uncle Matt, Daddy, Grammy, Aunt Becca, and Grampy (love this backyard!)

Then we headed to the hotel for the night.  Avery was very excited about staying in a hotel, even though I'm not sure he knew exactly what it was (I showed him photos).  He loved the big, King-sized bed!  He was so thrilled by his day/night of excitement that he didn't fall asleep until 8:45 - waaaaaayyyy past his bedtime.

Hotel! 

On the big bed with Mommy

Yet, he was still up at 6:18am, reading the numbers out from the clock.  And today was the day we were going to ride the Thomas Train!  We headed upstairs for the free breakfast (I was super-excited about the waffle maker) and some nice tourists told me that he talks very well.  :)

We got ready and out the door pretty much on time.  Noel met us at the gate and we went inside the building.  They had all sorts of activities to do but the thing that Avery wanted to do was play with the train table... just like the one they have at Minds Alive, and Chapters and.... but that's what he was excited to do, so that's what we did.  (Also, we have one at home too, but it's not quite as fancy).  Then Noel convinced him to come take a look at the model Thomas and Percy trains that were running on their tracks.  Avery thought that was pretty cool.  We also made a stop in the gift shop, where we picked out an official "Day Out With Thomas" train and Harold the Helicopter.  Avery wanted to play with them right away so I had to rush to the cash and when I was there I saw a pennant/flag so I had to get that for him too (he loves flags).  Then it was our turn to board the train!  We got seats beside an open window.  Avery was so excited to be on a train!  He loved the ride, although he was a bit subdued.  We are both very sick with stupid summer colds.  :(   It was a lovely 25-minute ride.  After that we had our pictures taken with Thomas!  We had a quick look at the petting zoo and then it was time for snack/early lunch.  Then we had to rush back to the hotel to check out.  A few minutes into the car ride home, Avery was asleep.

Day out with Thomas!

Playing at the train table

Big Thomas!

Playing peekaboo with Daddy while waiting for the train to go

On the train

On the train with Mommy

Thomas!

To break up the ride home we stopped to visit Uncle Andy, Aunt Corinna, and Erik.  Avery was pleased to see that there were cats there too!  (Now he must think that everyone besides us has cats).  He also got to see two bearded dragons that my cousin is watching for a friend.  We had a nice snack and Erik dug his Thomas the Train set out of storage for the occasion. I forgot to take any photos here - I blame the exhaustion!  It was a nice visit but, sadly, we did have to get back in the car for the final leg of the drive home.  Avery didn't sleep this time so there were some tense moments - mostly when he dropped (accidentally/on purpose) his toys in the back seat and couldn't reach them.  Then he would say "Mommy!  STOP!  Train!" and usually (if I thought it was more accidentally than on purpose) I'd have to find a place to turn off and retrieve his toys.  All in all, her was a pretty good traveler.  Now he's fast asleep.  I would say it was a successful adventure and I'm excited to have some more fun times with him this summer!

Official souvenirs