Adventure in Albany

For Labor Day weekend we headed up to Albany to see Ben, Betsy and Will and Mike and Julie. Saturday we saw the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown which was really fun. I wish we had gotten there earlier in the day (we were busy preparing for our one night of camping most of the morning) so that we could take advantage of some of the events of the day. The kids favorite parts of the museum were the tent with the toys (including a fake cow that the kids could really milk) and the carousel.











As a result of recommendations on the TripAdvisor website, we stayed in CrestHill Suites in Albany Saturday night. The room was really large and had a full kitchen, so it was very comfortable for the five of us. In the morning, after the obligatory swim in the hotel pool, we departed for the Thompsons Lake campground which a quick stop at the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Discovery Center. The kids loved the hands on activities there (see picture), and the outdoor nature trail seemed fun and kid-friendly. We could definitely have spent more time both at the discovery center and on the nature trails, but Mike and Julie were already waiting for us at the campground. When we arrived at Thompsons Lake, we went straight to the beach on the lake where Mike and Julie were already in the water swimming. The kids insisted on stopping at the small but awesome playground just outside the beach. When we got on the beach, the kids were excited to jump right in the water.

After swimming and playing on the sand, we went to the campsite. We borrowed a huge two room tent which was quite a challenge to set up as we couldn't find useful step-by-step directions. Dave was in charge of the campfire and cooking dinner (corn, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken and kabobs) for everyone. Ben, Betsy and Will and John and his girlfriend, Rachel joined us for dinner. The kids fell asleep quickly and slept well--they were certainly tired from the day's activities.

Though the campground was crowded Sunday night, on Monday morning the other campers left pretty quickly. We hiked over to the nature center in the morning and found a letterbox, which was exciting for the kids. Unfortunately, the nature center is closed on Mondays so we didn't go inside, but from peeking in the windows, it looked worthwhile. We still had plenty of firewood, so Dave cooked up some hamburgers left over from the night before for lunch, and we packed up our cars. The section of the campground was closing for the winter, and the park rangers had locked the bathroom to make sure we didn't stay too late.

After lunch, we helped Mike and Julie launch the canoe into the lake, then said goodbye to the campsite and drove to the beach, which hadn't quite closed up yet. We all took turns taking a ride in the canoe, playing in the playground and on the beach (at least until they kicked us off the beach because it was closing for the winter). Before going home we made a quick stop at John Boyd Thatcher State Park because I was excited to see if we could find some fossils. The fossils were not as obvious as I had hoped, but the views from the area near the parking lot and the trail made the stop well worth while. We didn't go very far on the trail because the kids were very tired, but hopefully we will go back soon with a trailmap and perhaps more info about finding fossils.

This is the end of this blog, since the summer is over, but I am looking forward to exploring more corners of upstate New York. Today, Sunday, Sept 13, Laura and I went to Apple Hills Farm to pick apples. Laura loved picking apples--she could easily reach them and pick them off the trees. The apples were very tasty, so we ended up with 4 pounds at $.69/pound. Before leaving, we visited a few goats and sheep behind a fence, and food for them is available for $.50 inside the store. It was definitely a fun outing. We will have to check out other local farms, but any visits will be recorded elsewhere.

Last Fling of Summer

As summer winds down, I have a week at home entertaining the kids. We used our time to both get in our fill of typical summer activities and try out new attractions in update NY. Since we moved here just one year ago, we still have lots of new places to explore.

AFter spending the summer in Los Angeles, I thought that I should take the kids to see a movie. Ideally, I wanted to take them to an interesting movie palace in Los Angeles, but since I didn't, I did the next best thing: take them to a cheap-o movie theater here in Binghamton. Before the movie, we stopped at a park on Oak Hill Road and rode one of the Binghamton Carousels--one that we hadn't ridden before. The park had two decent playgrounds that are probably worth going back to next time we are in the neighborhood. The movie theater was just down the street. We saw the Disney movie, "Up". which was the most appropriate of the 3 kids and 2 adult movies playing at this theater. When we got to the theater a young couple (I estimate college age) was sitting in the center of the first row. Of course the kids decide to noisily plop right down in the three seats next to this couple (fortunately they were more amused than annoyed).

Tuesday, September 1 we went to Alpaca Fantasy World (an Alpaca farm) in Maine, NY. The kids loved seeing the Alpacas up close the and the stuff they make with Alpaca fur was pretty neat! After the farm, we stopped at a playground at the nearby elementary school and had ice cream across the street. The kids size cones were huge and very reasonably priced.

On Thursday we went wading in the creek by African Road Park, and Friday I took the kids for one last fling on the Carousel and the pool. Our first stop on Friday was West Endicott Park so that the kids could play in the pool and I could sit and watch, but Joshua wanted a deeper place to swim. So, after the Carousel ride, I thought that we could go to the Vestal Pool. Unfortunately, the it wasn't open that week, so we rushed over to the Highland Park pool. The big pool was a bit cold for Benjamin and Laura preferred the wading pool, but Joshua enjoyed the big pool a little even though he was lonely because the pool was empty.

Return Home, Finally!!

Friday, August 21 was mostly spent preparing for our trip home--packing, cleaning our rented house the best we could and looking forward to being on our own beds again! We finally managed to go to the Audubon Center at Debs Parks before dropping Dave off at work. The kids had fun climbing trees and playing in the house. We borrowed binoculars and butterfly wings that the kids enjoyed using. Benjamin and I only saw a few lizards (which was still exciting) quickly escape into the bushes, but when Laura and I went with Grandma, we saw lots in plain view.

The rest of the morning was taken up with errands, including mailing books home (I hope we get them soon) and choosing a special snack for the flight home. Joshua discovered some sea animal cheese crackers that the kids couldn't wait to gobble down. We picked up Daddy in time to have dinner at El Polo Loco and then went home and settled down for our last night in California.

Saturday morning everything went smoothly on our drive to the airport and getting on our flight. I think Laura used the bathroom on the first flight 5 times. When we got to Dallas, we had to sit on the runway for over half an hour before we got into a gate, so we had to rush to our connecting flight. The kids were excited to take a train between terminals, and we got onto our second flight, but, as we were to find out later, our luggage didn't. Laura napped for a while on the second flight after screaming for a while that she wanted to be served apple juice. After she woke up, she was too grumpy and tired of traveling to be interested in the bathroom more than twice. The kids were excited to see two Grandmas and one Grandpa and drive back to East Brunswick in our very own van. Dave picked up our luggage at the Binghamton Airport on Monday. It is good to finally be back home!

Getty visit after all!

Benjamin has been asking to go back to the Zimmer Children's Museum, so I decide to head there today and meet up with Cathy, then come back here in the early afternoon to get some packing done. Unfortunately, when I got to the Zimmer, I found out that it didn't open until 12:30 today.

Cathy was psyched to visit the Getty instead, so we went there. The kids loved the tram ride (it seemed longer than I remember) and running around in the gardens (which I am not sure was a good idea because that disturbs the tranquility that adults seek in such places). Then we sat down and ate lunch before going to the family room, which is a hands on activity room for kids. This room is divided into 5 sections. The first has a mask making activity, the second has mirrors and animal magnets, the third is a construction-type activity in which the kids attach each side of a foam cylinder to the wall (this was Benjamin's favorite), the fourth was a bed with books on it (only Joshua checked this one out), and the fifth we skipped because it seemed less exciting. The kids also enjoyed walking around a fountain which had a narrow circular walkway between two pools of water (see first picture with me, Laura and Cathy) and riding the tram back down to the parking lot.

I wasn't in the mood to take the kids into any galleries, though they have free family art treasure hunt cards that would have been fun to try. Instead, since we were passing by Westwood anyway, we went to Diddy Reese, my favorite ice cream place from my graduate school years. The kids were really excited to go out for ice cream, since we do that very infrequently. I thought that they would ask for the ice cream sandwiches (in the past 10 years, the price went up $.50 to $1.50), but they asked for ice cream in a cup with a cookie on the side. I was relieved because a 3 year old with an ice cream sandwich is very messy. Later they excitedly told Daddy that they went to a restaurant that only serves ice cream!

They were so disappointed to have missed the children's museum that we stopped there for an hour after dropping off Cathy at her car. The kids had a great time, even though it is not very big. Benjamin loved the ambulence and the water table. Joshua was excited by the stage and dress up area and the puppet theater. Laura's favorite are the airplane and the lemonade stand. I rushed them out after an hour because I was worried about traffic and wanted to get back to start dinner, but they definitely could have stayed longer. The school bus exhibit was blocked off last time we were here, but Benjamin and Laura had fun playing with it today. We've been making good use out of our Association of Children's Museums membership--I would not be so excited to go to all these different museums if we had to pay admission each time.

Los Angeles Zoo

Now that we are in our final days of our time in Los Angeles, I am trying to make sure we cover the sites that the kids will enjoy the most. For future reference, here is a list of things we won't have time to do:
Getty Museum and Villa--I read that they have new children's activities, so I wanted to go back.
Will Rogers Park to see the weekend polo games
Manhattan Beach Roundhouse, though we have spent a lot of time at aquariums
Orange County Great Park Balloon (free balloon ride sounds awesome).
Franklin Canyon and other nature centers and parks
Cerritos Library

The kids are super-eager to help pack their stuff, which they are haphazardly stuffing into their backpacks. Benjamin can't wait to put his toys to into his new Speedracer backpack.

After driving to San Diego and to Orange County for several museums and other activities, I want to stay relatively local this week and reduce the time spent sitting in the car. Perhaps we will get another chance next summer to see some of the fun things in Orange County that we've missed.

Today we picked the LA Zoo since it is so close, and Laura and I still haven't seen some of it. I wanted to make sure we got to the northwest section, which I hadn't seen, but Benjamin and Joshua saw during zoo camp. Since the zoo is so spread out and requires lots of walking for little legs, I made sure to bring plenty of food and water so that we could take a bunch of rest breaks.

Before we even left the house, one of Joshua's goals for our visit to Los Angeles came true--he caught a lizard! All summer Joshua has been thinking about elaborate traps to help him catch a lizard, but this time, he didn't need one. It was a small lizard that happened to find itself on our patio. After looking at it for a bit, Joshua released it into the yard.

On the way to the zoo, Benjamin gave Laura a spelling lesson ("say C-A-T"). At the zoo, one of the first animals we saw was the rock hyrax. Joshua saw the four babies during his week at camp, and he was eager to see how they are doing. Though he saw most of these animals at zoo camp, Benjamin was happy that we ended up seeing lots of monkeys. He was especially excited by the chimps and described in great detail how they pooped while he was visiting them during camp. The orangutans (difficult to find because not all the animals are labeled on the map) were also fun to watch. The kids were disappointed that the goat petting area was closed, but perhaps by our next visit to LA, the petting area and the new elephant exhibit will be open.

Benjamin is such a voracious reader these days that he finished all the books we borrowed from the library on Monday and we had to stop and get him a new collection on our way home.

Playgrounds and more playgrounds

I picked today to make a final visit to Griffith Park to ride their bikes in the Shane's Inspiration playground before I post them (the bikes, that is) for sale on craigslist. Then we went to the Americana at Brand Mall for a children's concert and to ride on the trolly. The children's folk music by Melissa Green turned out to be better than many of the other kids' shows that we have seen. Fortunately, the trolley started up soon after the show ended and we got to take a ride on it. I think the mall starts the trolley on Tuesdays (kids day) a few hours earlier than on other days. The first few rides around the mall on the trolley were packed full of kids there for the show--obviously the mall is catering to the interests of the kids. Finally, we stopped at Auntie Anne's to use the free pretzel coupon from the summer reading club.

In the afternoon we went to Cerritos Park in Glendale because the kids seem to prefer that water play area to the one in Pasadena, but it was a bit too cool for them to spend much time in the water. They enjoyed the dry spaceship playground anyway.

Today's fun car conversations centered around marriage and building a dinosaur hall. First Joshua asked why am I the only one in my family who is married, besides Grandma and Grandpa. I explained that Aunt Robin is also married. Then Benjamin asked about Aunt Robin's house, because "married people are rich". I told Benjamin that he can go in person to check out Aunt Robin's house.

The other conversation started when Laura said that she wanted to make a dinosaur hall (Benjamin made a dinosaur hall in his dinosaur camp) with doors, dinosaurs and drinks for the dinosaurs. Benjamin started giving her instructions to make a dinosaur hall like he did in camp.

Sharks, Rays and Squids

On Monday, August 17, we ventured to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. The kids have been excited to see sharks and other fish, and I was looking forward to trying out the aquarium setting on my new camera! Of course I had to take lots of pictures.

The outdoor exhibits were the kids favorite activities by far, especially the touch tanks and the playground. The kids were excited by the opportunity to touch rays, sharks and horseshoe crabs. Joshua had the most luck with the longest arm. Benjamin had some trouble, but managed in the end to touch a few creatures. Laura, on the other hand, stubbornly insisted that she had to try to touch every creature that swam by, and I had to frantically hold on to her (much to her annoyancy) to keep her from swimming with the rays and sharks. She did manage to dip some of her hair and head in the water in an attempt to reach the animals passing by.

Another highlight was the Children's Program in which Joshua got to play the part of the jellyfish in a skit in which Sharkalot was searching for the creature that ate his lunch. Laura kept asking me if it was her turn to go on the stage, but I told her that she has to be 6 years old. Now she keeps reminding me that we have to go back when she is old enough. She also keeps asking to go back to Adventure City so that she can ride on the roller coaster for which she was too small.