Downtown- Wednesday, 17Aug2016

this post is going to be reverse order from how we actually spent our day.  Also, it is out of chronological order as I will post Tuesday's activities later today.

 

 

Yesterday, I took Falco, Rocket and Dancer downtown.  Dancer will be staying with us while her host family is in Thailand on vacation, so this is a good way for her to start getting to know us.  yesterday was very hot and humid.  I really should have thought about doing something else, but both my boys will be starting weekend sports soon and getting out to see the city will not be easy.

 

We ended our adventure with some late lunch.  Here are Falco and Dancer trying some of our local specialty food for the first time.  Both of them liked it, so they got another item to have at lunch instead of a baked potato or salad- the non specialty items on the menu.

We spent some time at Smale park.  Falco enjoyed this area- he was a typical big brother and tried to scare Rocket.  I think Rocket is getting the picture that a brother can be fun but also not so fun at times.  They were fine together and I don't have any worries about them for the rest of the year.  I just think Rocket is going to see that his 'big brother" is just like his friend's big brothers.

Dancer liked this area too.

me and the bridge.  I like this angle. 

exercising with the city behind them. 

the kiddos and the bridge.  Even though the sky looks like it might rain, there was no rain while we were downtown in the afternoon.  Now, in the morning it poured and I though we would have to cancel our outing.  We got over 1.5 inches of rain in under an hour.

We also went to the carousel.  Because it was the first day of school in the city, the park and the carousel were empty.  I got to ride my favorite horse- finally.  Though I did have to kick Rocket off it.  He knew I wanted to ride it and he deliberately got on it.  Silly boy.

Me on the horse.

Rocket rode a second time and picked the corvette.  he was the only one on the carousel.

Dancer picked a great tiger to ride.

Falco choose the horse in lederhosen (of course).

Some pictures from Tuesday evening- Falco talking about scouting in Austria to the scouts in rocket's troop.

We also went to a local market/superstore that specializes in foods from around the world.  This is what we brought home- some plums, nectarines, bananas, tomatoes and cucumbers, along with a bunch of chocolate from Austria and Germany.

The Ritter Sport display- the most I have seen outside of my trip to Berlin in 2014.  I know where we will be shopping again.

 

Pictures from the aquarium are coming later this evening.  Falco and I are going up to the high school today to schedule his classes.  This ought to be a fun time since the freshman (9th graders) are in school today and I will want to walk Falco through the building with his schedule so he knows where to go.

 

More to come.

 

Love and hugs,

Deb

Smale Park again- so much fun

I received a message on Thursday, asking if Rocket and I wanted to join some friends at Smale Park for some fun on Friday afternoon.  We were in for this fun.  If you recall, we went to this park last summer with the scouts.  The flowers this year were so much bigger, definitely can see the growth.  I liked the framing of the bridge by all the plants.

The boys found the giant checkers and Chess boards.  Rocket and E3 played checkers and I had to ask him to surrender in the end, he had 1 king to E3's 7 kings.  They were just chasing each other around the board and the rest of the guys were ready to do something different.

The clouds started rolling in and made some good views of the downtown area.  It was not supposed to rain, but you will see later, this was not going to be true.

Looking under the bridge to the river

I love this bridge.  It so hard to remember that back when I was a kid, this area of town was nothing.  Nothing to see, nothing to do and definitely not someplace anyone took their kids.  I don't ever recall getting this close to the bottom of the bridge.

The boys spent some time playing on the playground and having fun.  They found that the slide was much faster if they had wet bathing suits.  They played "follow the leader" but called it "Spartan Warrior" based on the TV show of the same name.

You can see the dark clouds coming.

The boys- one the top, starting in the green, T, E3, E2, Rocket.  On the bottom, M (T's younger brother).

See the storm coming.  At this point, us moms started checking the weather maps.  There was a HUGE line of thunderstorms headed straight into Downtown. 

We rounded up the boys and headed into the carousel area (enclosed).  getting there was an adventure because of all the boys, only Rocket wore shoes and socks.  The rest wore their slides.  We were trying to get Rocket to move faster and it was not working- he has his own speed.  We made it into the carousel area just before the rain started.  We bought tickets for the boys to ride the carousel.  I should have ridden too because my favorite horse was open (it never is open, there is always someone who beats me to the horse).  For L- this carousel has animals that have a history in our city or are painted to reflect landmarks around here.  This horse reflect the Observatory here in town. 

The white tiger is for the white tigers at the zoo, the cheetah is for the fastest cheetah in the world who lived at our zoo (she died this year).

The pig is because this city was pork market of the Midwest.  I am not sure about the praying mantis.

Silly boys.  We ate lunch in the carousel area and the rain moved out. 

The grey sky stayed for a long time and the temperature really dropped after the rain.

There is a splash pad right outside the carousel area and the boys had a great time playing in the water.  Rocket complained the water was cold, but I thought it was wonderful.  yes, I took off my shoes and walked along the edge. 

I love this shot of the bridge.  I think when L gets here, we are going to walk across this bridge.

We walked along the river to the swings.  I could have stayed here all day.   But we wanted to make sure the boys got to the big splash park.

Mom A ended up being the towel rack for the boys.  We headed back to the chess board area and let the boys play on the playground some more.

But we had to get them to the big splash park.

I was walking in the water here too and getting splashed.

We spent about 4 hours playing at the park in total.  It was a great day.  L- we will be taking you here too.  It is a great way to see the city and still have fun.

 

Love and hugs,

Deb