Friday after work, Karen and I took Sarah to the North Museum to see the STEREO exhibit. This past week, NASA and GSFC released 3D images of the sun taken by a pair of satellites in orbit, and the North Museum was one of the places that was showing the images. Complete with her 3D glasses, Sarah watched the giant TV as images were displayed in all their glory. I felt it important for her to begin to see things as they actually are, as apposed to the way we see them. She was rife with questions and thoroughly enjoyed the educational experience.
We also learned that every Saturday, at 11:30, they have a special toddler exhibit in the planetarium that is geared for ages 3 and 4. This program is free to the public (with admission). If only the next several Saturdays weren't so booked.
This past weekend was Sarah's first experience with camping. We had slept in the tent in the backyard for the past 3 weekends, hoping to get her used to the idea of not sleeping inside, and she did really well with that. Well, this past weekend was the moment of truth. She did extremely well!
We got to Muddy Run Friday night at about 6:30, set up camp, and cooked sausages over a fire that I built, no camp stove neded for dinner. She did well eating outside, staying away from the firepit, and just generally listening to what we told her to do and not do. Sleeping was uneventful, which was exactly what we wanted.
Saturday morning we woke up early and cooked breakfast. This time, we used our new camp stove to boil water and make coffee and oatmeal. Simple, quick, and a good breakfast. The French Press was a great thing to have for the coffee. John and Claire and thier kids joined us late morning, and we then had lunch. Lots of sausages were eaten over the weekend.
The rest of the day was spent walking around the park and relaxing. We checked out the information on boating, found a geocache, went over to the playground, and generally enjoyed being lazy at the campsite playing with fire. Sarah, Paige and Ben got along well for spending so much time in close proximity to each other. They are all young and all feed off of each others energy, so things get wild every now and then, but they were good.
The kids were exposed to may forms of nature over the weekend. We had a walking stick take up residence on our tent, as did many spiders, caterpillars and even a cricket. They kids all enjoyed just looking at the bugs and asking questions about them. Nothing too exciting like snakes or bears, but a good introduction beyond grass, trees, and lightning bugs.
Saturday night was a different story all together though. The kids all went to sleep by 9:30, which is exactly what we were hoping for. The four of us sat around the camp fire talking and cooking. We retired around 11 or so, only to be awoken at 3:00 by heavy rain, thunder and lightening. Sarah slept through the entire storm, which is surprising. John and Claire didn't have it so good. Their tent leaked, heavily, and they ended up laying in puddles in their tent. The decided around 4:00 that they were going to go home and finish sleeping there, for the kids sake, then come back in the morning and finish out the weekend with us.
Breakfast Sunday morning was good. It consisted of leftover potatoes and sausage cooked in a cast iron skillet, and pancakes on a cast iron griddle. We then packed up and headed out. A wonderful, very enjoyable weekend. We will be doing this again in the coming months. Probably only once more this year, since our weekends are booked in September and much past October it get's cold overnight. Not sure I want to expose Sarah to that yet.
Yesterday was the 18th annual rubber duckie race to benefit Schreiber Pediatric Center of Lancaster County. Being that Sarah loves ducks, we took her to this, as we did last year. She had a blast! Just like last year, there were many kids games set up, but this year she could play some of them. She got to play minature golf, the bean bag toss, and even got to see Hildy from Trading Spaces. For it being so hot yesterday, she was in heaven.
As the time approached for the duck race to begin, we made our way towards the starting point. Last year we waited at the finish line, and that was just not as exciting and was a long wait. We got real close, probably a bit too close, because the canon signalling the dropping of the ducks scared her. After that went off and she relaxed, we moved down close to the water and she got to see all of the ducks floating downstream. The look on her face was priceless. Her over exagerated excitement is wonderful to see.
She really had a good time yesterday at the duck race. There is one coming up in September at the Kipona festival in Harrisburg that we have tickets for as well. We'll be sure to go to that one as well. Hopefully it won't be as hot!
Saturday was Sarah's first day trip, ever, that I can remember at least. She's going on 2 years old, and has been on long (week long) vacations to Tennessee, but never a day trip. Anyway, we decided we would go down to Inner Harbor in Baltimore for Karen and my 5th anniversary and spend the day as a family. We told Sarah we were going to take her to see the fish and ride a train, and she seemed very excited about this prospect.
We let her wake up on her own, then drove down to the Hunt Valley lite rail stop. It was raining and a Saturday, so I decided to get out and make sure the train was running and that we wouldn't have to wait for a long time. Sarah was not pleased as she thought this meant that she was not going to get to ride the train. She was hysterically crying when I got back to the car (Karen was in there with her). We calmed her down and explained that I just wanted to check the schedule, and then we got out and bought our tickets and boarded the next train.
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