Now it's no big secret that our little town doesn't offer much in the way of adventure....buuuuuut we did our best. Riley drove straight to a small museum that I'd always known existed but never thought about stopping at. We enjoyed our time there just checking out some good ol' history.....
Cutest banker around
Mail time!
A new meaning of "timeout"
Jailbirds
She wanted to grab the fishies out so bad
A mini version of the museum exterior
She called this her "playhouse"
After doing a horrible job at avoiding the gift shop we left with a sticker book and a pinwheel and made our way to pick up some lunch to take with us to our next stop....Alabaster Caverns. The last time Riley and I had been was back in 2002 for a less than stimulating field trip day for our geography class at OSU (yes, I just publicly admitted to attending that black and orange university. Don't repeat that, please ;)). Hallie snoozed on the way there so we scarfed down our lunch so that we'd be ready to start the tour when we arrived. Hal packed her backpack for this special occasion. She brought a baby bottle and a sticker book. Definite necessities. We only had to wait about ten minutes to start our tour. Fingers were crossed for a happy hike up all of those stairs in the dark.....I just had a good feeling about it. It could've had something to do with her extreme interest in going up and down these stairs at the entrance to the park.....
Our pig-tailed cutie trotted her way down quite a few stairs (with just a bit of help from me) and handed her ticket to the tour guide. She loves tickets. And walking through dark caves it turns out.....
The girl wanted to "splore".....so splore we did!!!!
She wore her backpack the entire forty-five minute journey as she walked/ran/wandered through the inside of the cavern. I would venture to guess that she walked forty of those minutes by herself. We hung out in the back to allow her extra time to get up and down the stairs. She even had a few questions for the guide when we would stop to hear specifics about various parts of the cave. "Der nakes in here?" The girl is just as concerned about those slithery creatures as her momma is. She also chimed in as the guide shined her flashlight on the ceiling to show off the shadow from a rock that appeared to be a creature....Hal shouted "dinosaur!!!" This was of course followed by lots of laughs from the group and a big high-five from mom and dad. She had an absolute blast!
I had to remind her several times to not hang over the bars. Daredevil!
The bats were a neat sight to see all hovered together up high....
Miss Independent decided that she had mastered the cave thing by the time we'd made it to the exit so she took off up the stairs and snaked her way through the crowd and made friends with a woman who helped her up the stairs since we were stuck in the back. No stopping this adventurer!
Of course she wanted to "do it again!!" as we made our way back to the parking lot. She's still got a lot more "sploring" to do....
This silly guy does too!!
No doubt we will be returning soon for another day of adventure. Is there anything more joyful than seeing your child try or see something new? Nope. No way.
No comments:
Post a Comment