Quiet Valley

After our several days of fun in the Philadelphia area, we headed north to a family reunion in the Poconos.  Once a year, all of my relatives on my dad's side get together.  It is a lot of fun to see everybody, and we usually spend the day visiting, eating good food and hanging out at the farm.  The highlights this year were the bunnies and the lake.

Holding a baby bunny.  It was very squirmy!

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Checking out Mama Bunny

Swimming in the lake.

Ryan caught a fish!  Good thing my cousin Drew was there to help him because he wanted NOTHING to do with touching it!  He was so proud of catching it though!  

Crayola Factory

On our third day in PA, we stopped at the Crayola crayon place.  It was really cool.

No mistaking which building it is in!

There were lots of crayon related activities to do.

Melting a crayon to make a new crayon in the shape of the crayon man!

Melting crayons to make drip art.  The paper inside the machine is spinning really fast, so when the hot wax from the melted crayon lands on it, it splatters all over making a cool looking piece of art.

Wax painting a butterfly.

Red Crayon Man!

Watching the green sea turtle (see it on top of the ship).  Ryan colored that turtle on a computer screen and then it showed up on the wall swimming in the ocean!  

Making the crayons dance by moving his body!

Drawing on the backlight boards.

His finished picture.

His favorite part of the museum was the water works exhibit.  It was a working replica of a canal and locks system that you drove a crayon boat down.  I didn't get a picture of him playing in it, but he loved it!  He also liked making his own paper for a yellow crayon.  His crayon wrapper had a guitar on it and he named it "James".  We also got to watch markers being made, crayons being made and got some model magic to bring home.  Pretty neat place!

New Hope and Ivy Railroad

After Bowman's Tower we went to New Hope to ride the train.  Ryan was thrilled!  There was a lady on board who read a couple books and then played her ukulele for the kids (there were only 2 other kids on the story part of the train).  The story music lady wasn't very impressive, but Ryan liked the train ride and we got to sit in a nice air conditioned train car for the 45 min. ride!  Ryan's favorite part was the lemonade and train crackers that he got for a snack! 

Diesel #7087  

Another favorite part of the ride was when we got to watch them unhook the train and bring it around to the other side of the train when it was time to reverse direction and head back to the station.

Boman's Tower

On our way to our second day's adventure, a ride on a train, we came upon this tower sticking out above the trees.  It looked interesting, se we decided to investigate.  This is what we found . . . 

The story goes that this "Tower was constructed atop Bowman's Hill to commemorate what may have been a lookout point for General Washington's troops to watch the banks of the Delaware River for any enemy activity.  (This is more oral tradition than documented fact.)"  Bowman's Tower is part of the Washing Crossing Historic Park in Washington Crossing, PA.  The "mission of Washington Crossing Historic Park is to preserve and interpret the site at which General Washington planned and executed his daring crossing of the Delaware River on December 25, 1776, which lead to victory in the Battle of Trenton and turned the tide of the Revolutionary War. . ." quotes from Tower pamphlet.

There is an elevator that takes you almost to the top and then there are about 20 stirs to climb to get to the outside viewing area.  It is about 125 ft tall, but stands on a hill, so you can really see the surrounding area.

The view was impressive.  You can see the Delaware River and parts of PA and NJ.  Ryan wasn't that impressed though!  I took a picture of him, took one picture of the view before I realized that he was already heading back down the steps without me!

Random June Pics

Here is Ryan doing one of his favorite summer activities -- "driving" this battery operated Jeep at the Frisco Fire Safety Town Summer Fun Friday Nights!  He loves driving the jeep around the little town they have, but really needs to work on his diving skills.  I have to run along side and steer for him.  In our lovely Texas summer that is quite a work out at 5:30 at night!  He gets SO excited though and wait all year for this activity!

Daddy's birthday!  Ryan was so excited that we got a CHOCOLATE ice cream cake for him!

One our way to Philadelphia we had a 4 hour lay over in Boston.  Fortunately Logan had this fun play area that kept Ryan occupied for some of that time!

Sesame Place

Our first stop on our summer trip was Sesame Place.  Ryan LOVED it!  It was a very nice park.  There were a lot of people there, but it was spread out enough that it wasn't overwhelming.  They had both wet and dry rides and Ryan tried both, but preferred the dry rides.  We spent one day here and that was the perfect amount of time.  We arrived in the morning, stayed for a couple hours, had lunch and then went back to our hotel for a rest.  We returned to the park in the afternoon, had dinner and stayed for the parade.  Unfortunately, just as the parade was about to start it started to thunder, lightening and pour, so the parade was cancelled and we made a mad dash back to our car before the worst of the weather hit.

Out of all the rides, this was Ryan's favorite.  They were train cars that you used a lever to make move, kind of like a rowing machine.  He happily moved himself along the whole track -- it was A LOT of work!  His favorite part was going through the tunnel.

The lazy river -- his favorite water ride!

Big Bird's Hot Air Balloon Race

Waiting to see Elmo Live!

Elmo and Ryan's favorite -- Mr Noodle!  The only time it rained during the day was when we were in this show -- it was perfect timing!  We also saw Cookie Monster, Super Grover and Zoe.  Ryan liked seeing the characters from FAR away, but didn't want to have anything to do with getting close to them.  We would have taken a picture of them -- if we had remember our camera!

Peek-A-Bug -- Ryan loved this ride.

The first ride he rode, Elmo's Flying Fish! 

That's all we have for pictures.  I forgot the camera when we went in the morning.  Thought I would remember it when we went back in the after our rest, but I didn't.  So, I had to buy a disposable camera.  Taking pictures the "old fashion" way reminds of how nice it is to use a digital -- you get to see your picture right away and you aren't limited to 27 exposures!

We had a lot of fun!  What a great park for a preschooler!

Spring Program

Here is the video from Ryan's spring program at his school.


Song 1 from Ryan Focus on Vimeo.