my weekend so far...long post

Well, this weekend is going pretty good, the boys had a blast at the fair, S faced some fears of large scary rides and realized they were more fun than scary. R wanted to ride everything, even the things that he was too short for...we actually went on the YoYo (swinging chairs that spin), bumper cars, Tilt-a-Whirl, a couple of those walk-through fun houses, a mini-roller coaster and a rather cheesy rocket ride. The boys won two prizes each and ate cotton candy and really yummy corndogs.

We got home really late and had to get up early for Turtle bay. My sister-in-law joined us for that one. It was really fun, they were having an exhibit on the Titanic...one of the main reasons I wanted to go. As you are entering the exhibit they give you a boarding pass with a name history and even travel mates, you carry that pass with you throughout the exhibit, and at the end you look your name up on a wall to find out if you lived or died...kinda morbid but it really gets you into the feeling of the whole ship...both R and S's people died, mine and SIL lived...the boys thought there was a conspiracy...lol. The rest of the exhibit was fabulous...there were facts about the microbes that eat the iron and leave the long orange/brown ropes of iron ore from the ship (probably my favorite part), there were also lots of artifacts that were brought up from the bottom of the ocean and preserved (they told you all about how each type of item was preserved and why it was preserved that way, they also had people stationed about that would talk to you about what they "did" aboard the Titanic, one guy in particular was supposed to be a coal shoveler who won the honor of working aboard the ship, he talked about how he missed his wife and would we please tell her he loves her (you know me, I was nearly bawling) then asked us that if we found out we did not make it would we please bring with us a pint of Guinness!

The turtley part of turtle bay was great too, although the turtles were suspiciously absent. There was a part where you could feed birds, they were just cockatiels and parrots, but the kids loved it, the birds would actually get on your hand and sit there and eat if you stood still, the boys would get one on and then move suddenly to show me or SIL and away the thing would fly. There was also a butterfly display, the boys kept trying to get the butterflies to climb on their fingers the same way the birds did, but the butterflies would have none of it.

Lastly there was a water thingy...only word I can think to call it. it was a (very small) waterfall leading to a little pooling area, leading to a fast water area, to a table where they could put little slats to hold up the water then remove them and have a huge rush of water heading out to a water wheel, the kind that were used long ago to create energy for milling and what not. The boys had a blast playing with that for a while as SIL and I took a much needed break. Oh, I almost forgot, in the midst of this we visited the Sundial bridge...it was really neat...I have some pretty cool pictures too...I will be sending those out via email.

Once we got back home we went to dinner at the Olive Garden...S complained when we first settled on this place to eat, "but I don't like olives" lol. The food was good, I of course, ate too much... really need to stop that..but the food was good!!! Then we went to see "Pirates of the Carribean 3" It was really good, a little on the bad halucinogen trip in some parts but all in all certainly better than Spidey. The reason I say this is because the critics are saying that Spidey is better than Pirates...BS!! Pirates rocked...make sure you watch the first two before you go watch three though...you may struggle a bit to catch up...I did, but then again I have a TERRIBLE memory...so you might be okay.

Well that is about it for now...going to have to go do some laundry and get ready for my dad's...it has been a busy but very fun weekend so far...looking forward to the rest!

C