Ugg, I'm currently a week behind on blogging. Blah. I love to blog, but I hate it when I get behind!
Anyway, the kids and I spent all last week up north, splitting our week between Grammy and Papa Frank's house and GraGra and Papa Greg's house. It was, thankfully, a beautiful week (no one up there has central air conditioning for this princess to be spoiled in!). It was sunny and warm, but no humidity. The perfect week to spend outside visiting and playing! Most of the week we just played in various backyards and blow-up pools. We went for a big swim at Dickiedoo's house one night too; Gillian had a blast wearing a life jacket and swimming "all by myself!"
The big event of the week though was a visit to State College on Thursday to check out the Arts Fest and meet the Nittany Lion! Shockingly enough, we hadn't had the kids to State College to check out Penn State yet, and it was time to remedy that! Grammy and I loaded up the kids right after breakfast and zipped right over. The kids were very persistent with their questioning of, "Is it Penn State yet?" And very good at pointing out electric towers and bridges the whole way there.
Our first stop was the "People's Choice Arts Fest" in Boalsburg. I have several friends from college who now live in State College (I'm very, very jealous) and I had made plans to meet up with two of them, Natalie and Gwen. I hadn't seen Natalie since my wedding...TEN YEARS AGO! And you know what, she hadn't changed a bit. Well, except for the four kiddos!
It was hard to chat very much with seven kids between three adults, but we did get to catch up a bit!
(Natalie's oldest, Nicholas, had his friend along for the day, hence the extra kiddo!)
Gwen sent us a text that she and her girls weren't going to make it though. They had just gotten back from Montana the day before, so they were just all out of sorts! We missed them, but it was TOTALLY understandable! Next time!
So, at the Boalsburg Arts Fest they had a petting zoo, bounce house, train ride, and science tents for the kids. The petting zoo and bird seed bin were total hits with Colin and Gillian. Well, the petting zoo was more Colin's favorite, but I think Gillian enjoyed it too!
Colin and Grammy enjoyed feeding the (slightly pushy) goats.
But Colin's favorite were these pigs that Gillian is smiling at!
Bean liked the tortoise. It wasn't in her face, like the goats!
See? Pushy goat.
Both kids loved, loved, loved this bin of bird seed in the science center tent. They had all sort of machines that you could pour the seed through and watch them spin. They must have spent 30 minutes in the seed.
Gillian also had her face painted by some lovely high school thespians. Really, she was much more pleased with it than this picture would lead you to believe!
When Colin saw what they were doing to Gillian, he got all panicked and started saying, "I no have to do that. I no want to get paint!" over and over. Poor kid. I did NOT make him paint his face!
Of course, it was mandatory that we ride the train. No escaping that. It was actually quite a bumpy ride!
It was nice though, Natalie and I agreed, since it drove us past most of the art booths. That was the only way I was going to get to look at the art!
We had a quick lunch with Natalie's family and packed up. We were headed into downtown State College for the "official" Arts Fest. Although, I have to say, if you have little kids, Boalsburg is the place to visit. Much more kid friendly.
By this point it was 1:00 and our usual nap time. The kids did really well though. Grammy and I pushed them around the streets for a while, looking in booths and chatting. I think the kids enjoyed the breather. We checked out the annual sand sculpture (kids were not impressed).
We grabbed a lemonade, a potty break, and walked through the misters on the street. Then it was on to campus!
The kids were STILL asking where the Nittany Lion was! I think they were also a little confused by the multi-building, campus-style "school." Didn't quite fit their definition of "school." And Gillian asked if she could go into a frat house. NO. NEVER. EVER. It was also quite an eye opener to push a double stroller on campus. First of all, it's so STEEP! Second of all, all of my usual "shortcuts" are not so quick with a stroller!
Finally, we found Mr. Lion!
And again, the kids were less than impressed, I think. Grammy and I tried to get them to sit on his back for a nice (traditional) photo, but, no go. They told us the lion was "too slippery." So, we let them play around the lion and I got a few shots of them.
Not sure what that face is about!
They did like his tail!
Almost the picture I wanted!
Soon there were other people wanting a turn with the lion, so we were off. Off to find Creamery Ice Cream. Yum.
And find it, we did! Thankfully we had the sense to only get two (huge) cones and shared them. The kids always ask for strawberry and Grammy ordered Death by Chocolate.
After ice cream it was time to head home. We were all tired, hot, and sticky. The kiddos did NOT fall asleep in the car on the way home. They hardly ever sleep in the car! So, they were in bed at 6:50 pm. And were out like lights!
Oh, and as we were leaving campus, Colin said to us, "I want to go to PENN STATE!" Oh, music to my ears!
We really did have a very fun week visiting with all of our family. I think it will be on our agenda for next summer too!
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