Family Fun Day

Eric and I declared Tuesday "Family Fun Day." Eric took off of work and Emerson and I abandoned our usual routine for a day of new adventures.

We started at Dinosaur World, of course. I think the easiest way to explain Dinosaur World would be to say it is like a sculpture garden but in a forest and with dinosaur replicas instead of art. It is clearly someone's dream and you can tell that a lot of thought and attention has been put into making it real.

Emerson liked it starting from the parking lot.

We were literally the only people there for the first hour and a half and it was neat, if a little weird, to have the place to ourselves. We let Emerson roam free and he loved it, except for just a few of the particularly large and scary ones.

 Emerson also got to search for fossils in a timed 15 min sand-pit dig where he could keep three of the fossils he found. He and Eric found a lot of teeth and a couple snail-looking rocks just before the buzzer.

 On our way to Dinosaur World we had noticed a sign for a winery just a little ways down the road. "Why not?" we thought. This is what Family Fun Day is all about.

Eric did the full tasting - 3 blueberry wines, 2 blackberry wines and about 6 "fusion" wines which are 80% grapes and 20% fruit, for example peach chardonnay and key lime sauvignon blanc. If you like Kool-Aid, this is the winery for you. And the best part: the wine slurpee machine behind the tasting counter (far left in photo, probably acquired when a nearby 7-11 had to close down). We brought home a bottle of the semi-dry blueberry wine and passed on the slurpee (they were low on ice anyway).

After Emerson's nap, Family Fun Day continued at: the Mall. We decided it would be fun to take Emerson to see Santa, though Emerson wasn't too keen on the idea of spending any one-on-one time with Santa so we took a family photo. For the record, I was not expecting to have my photo taken. Here's our last photo as a family of three: I have maximum belly, and Santa's not doing too bad himself. 

And, because it was Family Fun Day, Eric and Emerson rode the merry-go-round at the mall as well. 

A great time was had by all.