Tag Archives: family fun

Star Wars, Something Hit, and A Family Trampoline Trip

Going Mom made use of Memorial Day and extended the already extended weekend by taking additional days off to spend with the family. As always, time flew by, but it was well spent with lots of love from Mommy.

family, love, parenting

My wife loves making our home better and more “homey” and she constantly has a running list of 10+ projects to do. Mainly replacing light fixtures, hanging shelves and pictures, and painting. The project du jour for her time off was to paint every area where the walls were beige, another color. Oh, that’s about 75% of our house, by the way.

As if I expected anything less, she got right to it with the painting while simultaneously rocking motherhood. Avery had to be around everything Mommy was doing, and Going Mom would stop to read, play, and kiss boo-boos as needed. I’m ashamed to say I did not lay a finger on a paint brush, but for what it’s worth, I kept busy in the kitchen making good food for the family. Or I hope it was!

Since “everything beige” includes the ceiling, that will probably be left to a professional since my shoulder issue would make it hard to help, and it’s just not a fun or easy task to take on with a toddler running rampant.

One of the days, my wife took some time for a nice hair appointment, so Avery and I held down the fort by going on the longest ride she’s ever been on with her WOOM 1 Balance Bike. We ventured around the new construction in our neighborhood and said hi to the construction trucks we saw. Just as we made it home, the rain started coming down, so we took it inside for her second Star Wars experience.

family, star wars, daddy's girl, love

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. I can’t wait for the next one where she will see the Ewoks! I’m not sure, but I think she enjoyed watching with daddy.

daddy, daughter, family, star wars

For the last day of Mommy’s time off, we planned on going to Urban Air, a local trampoline park and stopping at Costco for our weekly store trip. We left home and stopped at our neighbors to celebrate the capture of the masked bandit killing their chickens, then took off for some jumping fun together. But something happened right before we could get there….

Subaru Front Driver's Side Damage

Yep, a freakin’ fender bender. Some smoker mom with her kid in a car seat in the back of her car dismissed a stop sign and pulled in front of me on a main road. That had me already not a fan of the lady, then, as we both entered a left turn lane with a yellow flashing yield arrow, she started to go since there were no oncoming cars. I proceeded to follow (albeit maybe a little close, but still), and then she suddenly stopped as she was attempting a u-turn instead of a left turn as I thought. A screech of the brakes and our bodies lunging forward later, and my poor “blue rocket” as Avery calls it, made contact.

Luckily, we were going pretty slow and hardly any damage occurred. Just some bent plastic and scratches. The woman made a huge fuss and her dad (who was not even there) decided to call the cops. We exchanged info and said we wanted to go, but she whined that we’d get in trouble if so. I left to drop Going Mom and Avery off so they could start their jumping fun, and then came back. After sitting around longer, it turns out, the cops never showed, and we finally parted ways.

Not sure what will happen with the wreck at this point. Most likely it’s on me since I rear-ended her. Damn. But, the good news is that I made it over to jump with my favorite girls. They were already busy, um…..jumping?

family, trampoline park, fun

Whatever it was, we ended up having a great time. I think we stayed a little too long as Avery wore herself out and started getting cranky by the time we made it home for lunch. Crankiness aside, we enjoyed having Mommy home and now we have her again for the weekend!

Have you ever been in an accident where you swear it wasn’t your fault but because of how the law works, it was on you?

Are you a Star Wars Fan?

What To Do At The Zoo When You’re Two

Hi! Avery, here, long time no “talk”. Mommy and Daddy brought me to what they call a zoo for the first time ever, and it was full of awesome animals! Now that I’m back and an experienced zoo-goer, I wanted to share a few things to do at the zoo when you’re two.

You’ve probably seen many of the zoo animals in books and in the form of cute toys, but seeing the real deal is a completely different experience. Take, for example, turtles. Daddy has been surrounding me with turtle things my entire life, but seeing big ones I could sit on was turtley awesome!

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I kept telling him to “Go”, but he just sat there. Weak……They may not be as exciting as a trip to the trampoline park, but sitting on a tortoise should be on every toddler’s pail list. Just make sure to never look at your mommy and/or daddy when as they shout “Look at the camera and smile!” for the thousandth time. And that’s just on the lackluster turtle.

His friends just stood off in the distance watching, guess they don’t like giving toddler rides. Or maybe they were arguing over who gets to be Michelangelo.

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Even turtle tantrums lack excitement. I could teach them a thing or two in that department.

Another thing you must do is pet a snake. Daddy wouldn’t shut-up about snakes, and after dragging us through all of the reptiles, he brought me to pet this snake that turned out to be pretty cool. I’d even do it again.

zoo, family, snake, reptile, kids, learning

Dad says we should get a pet snake, but Mom says no. Haven’t heard much after that…..

The zoo is filled with all kinds of birds throughout the area. The first ones I spotted were these crazy pink birds just standing in water. Some were even on one leg!

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If you can, get out of the stroller for a closer look at the birds who were all ready to flamingle. They were all squawking about something, probably the awesome curls in my hair.

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What you should NOT get out of the stroller for is a closer look at this guy…..a crocodile.

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They look much happier in the books and toys I have, but this guy was not up for playing. I was okay with keeping strapped in my stroller to look at the sleepy swamp dweller. Petting snakes is one thing, but I wouldn’t touch a crocodile with a 10 foot pool noodle.

What I do suggest petting are the animals in the petting zoo. As the name implies, it’s like a mini zoo within the zoo where you get to pet animals. Mommy held me as I pet the wet nose of a calf which felt a lot like our fat cat’s nose, only much bigger.. I’m just glad he wasn’t in a bad moo-d.

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Next up was a baby goat who was far from lively. No need for help to pet him, I just reached through the fence and felt his slightly coarse white hair. Yeah, when you’re two, you can be a little more independent.

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The petting zoo was a neat experience, but unless they add more animals, disco lights, or both, I could probably just skip this section next time.

Going to the zoo means a lot of walking, and even though we had a stroller, I wanted to prove that I can walk just fine on my own. But I have daddy trained pretty well and made sure he pushed the stroller just in case I was ready to climb back in. Which I did, a lot, and something I suggest all my peers do too. Just keep our parents in check.

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Mommy has him trained too. When I decided to climb in, we both celebrated our daddy training success by raising our arms high in the sky and making him take our picture.

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This is something no to be contained only for zoo visits, do it anywhere all the time!

Another zoo transportation option is on your parent’s shoulders. I made frequent use of taking a ride on daddy’s shoulders to get a better view of animals and help pick bugs out of his hair.

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As it turned out, there were no gross bugs wandering around on his head. This made me very happy!

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The giant cats in the background looked pretty cool, but they must’ve been sleepy since they were all lion around.

Much like those sleepy cats, daddy’s shoulders get uncomfortable after a while, so I exercised my other option; Mommy! We enjoyed watching the elephants together, they were my Mom’s favorite zoo animal.

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Did you know elephants like to play too? We saw a baby elephant trying to get it’s mommy to play with a giant log.

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It made me think of all the fun I have playing with my Mommy, which put me in deep thought mode for a minute.

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So, when it comes to transportation at the zoo, make use of your mommy and daddy when/if possible. I will, however, suggest you try your hardest to choose only one at a time. It seems every time we are all together, they try to take family selfies, which I’m not too fond of…..ever.

Family Selfie at Zoo

At one point, we stumbled on this well camouflaged animal that looked like a miniature bearded horse with horns. He just stood there, keeping still and looking like he didn’t even know how it goat there.

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One of my favorite parts of the entire visit to the zoo was the giant bird area. There were hundreds of birds flying around the area, and you could feed them with a stick covered in seeds. Daddy held me on his shoulders as I held a stick that daddy got for me (I’ve got the training down!) and fed the birds.

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Some birds even landed on the stick I was holding!

Avery Holding Bird at Zoo

If nothing else, definitely do this when you’re at the zoo! It’s even worth having your parents try to take MORE selfies.

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After the bird excitement, I started turning on my crazy toddler mode (i.e. naptime) which had Mommy and Daddy rushing through the zoo to get back to our car. Back at the front, we got to see a gorilla with her baby.

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I wonder if the gorilla mommy would let her kid come to the trampoline park with me sometime. They sure do look like they’d have fun jumping!

My parents said I can choose one souvenir to remember my first trip to the Fort Worth Zoo, so we made a quick stop at the shop conveniently located on the way out. I had to stay in the stroller as mommy and daddy waved toys in my face. I wasn’t sure if I was picking the toy or they were, but one thing’s for sure, I did NOT want the spider dad showed me.

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My dad, I mean I, ended up choosing a lanky rubber snake despite Mommy’s attempts to get me to ask for a cute owl or bear hand puppet. In retrospect, I don’t know why I said I wanted the snake instead of a fuzzy animal puppet, but “Raps” (the name of my dad’s late pet milk snake) is proving pretty fun to play with.

No matter what you choose to do at the zoo when you’re two or ninety-two, just seeing all of the amazing animals will be the highlight of the trip. At the zoo, you get to see creatures found all over the world all in one big area. Pretty cool if you ask me. Grab your parents and find one near you. I can’t wait until I’m older and can appreciate all of the wild-life even more!

The Only Treat in Her Halloween Basket

Last year might have been her first Halloween, but this year was more exciting for sure. We were able to use the same pumpkin costume as last year (no Elsa here!), but that’s where the similarities end.

Avery’s First in 2014

Halloween Pumpkin 2014

Avery’s Second in 2015

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Good to see she’s growing! But maybe a little too fast, she’s already expressing herself a bit much.

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Fine, Avery, you can pick your own costume next year, geez!

During the day on Halloween, we carved our first pumpkin as a family.

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We tried to get Avery to stick her hand inside to help pull out the pumpkin guts, but all she wanted to do was stick her head in and sniff.

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Not wanting to waste the insides, I spread the seeds on a baking sheet to roast them. Avery was happy to sit and observe.

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I told her we were going to cook and eat the pumpkin’s guts. Although she didn’t look the slightest bit interested, she couldn’t stop eating them once out of the oven.

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Due to my lack of tools, skills, and overall desire to get elaborate, we kept it simple with a traditional jack-o-lantern look. Kelley drew the lines and I completely jacked up the outline with my unsteady knife hand.

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The end result was nothing mind-blowing, but hey, we did it together as a family and that’s what matters most.

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We just enjoyed seeing how involved and interested Avery was with the whole process, and you could tell how excited she was about our carved gourd.

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Maybe “excited” is not the right word, but she Iinterested, I swear! She really became interested as we prepared to go trick-or-treating, especially with all of the costumed big kids (parents too) out and about going door to door. Outside at the front of our house, she just stood in her pumpkin suit and stared as Elsa’s walked with Mummies, and The Hulk had apparently settled down and shrunk in size.

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There was no carrying around like last year, this time she was ready to walk on her own.

We have an almost half mile loop around our house that she walked most of on her own with only a few tiny trips. Those darn feet!

Avery still doesn’t know what candy is, she just calls out the color of the wrappers if she sees some, and we never expected for her to get anything on her trick-or-treating adventure, it was all for the experience. That said, one of our neighbor friends, Jason along with his wife Jennifer, had asked what she could have so they could have something to give her to put in her bucket, and I said she loves bananas. This simple, yet generous offer was extremely thoughtful and appreciated by Going Mom and myself.

He and his wife have two little girls, Natalie and Zoey, and I’ve mentioned how we’ve been over to jump on their trampoline and play a few times before. Their house was the only one we actually stopped at that night, and Avery happily (with a confused-about-her-surroundings look) accepted her banana treat to fill her Halloween basket.

Banana Trick-or-Treating at Dunn's

Kelley and I were trying to chat for a minute, and in that minute, Avery was already trying to eat her treat without even peeling the thing. We stopped her after she already had her teeth sunk in the peel, and I took it away to “unwrap” the wrapper so she could have a bite. Bad move, that set off our impatient pumpkin.

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Crap, meltdown! Luckily, the crisis was averted by her brown-spotted treat once it was in her belly.

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Good thing I didn’t mistake that other, more round pumpkin next to her as my costumed daughter or she would’ve been outraged when I tried to feed it her banana.

Happy once more, we set off to complete the loop with Avery doing mostly good on foot. We ran into some friends all around her age and as we stopped to talk to their parents, they conversed amongst themselves as well.

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On the right is Natalie, and the middle is another friend/neighbor, Emma. Not sure what they discussed, but none of them looked exactly happy with us.

Soon after, we completed the loop and thus, Avery’s first experience of trick-or-treating. I’m sure next year will be even more eventful and probably not as easy to get away with just a banana for her basket, but only time will tell.

Did you take your little ones out to trick-or-treat?

Any fun/exciting/hopefully not bad stories to share?