The D-Penguineers made it to the FIRST Championship competition in St Louis again! This time I brought Dylan along with me to play with Aliya, and boy did we PLAY!
The first day:
Dylan loved all of the different booths displaying their challenges. This wyoming display was his favorite. The cowboy suits him huh?
Wisconsin's was pretty great too
Check out D's rockin hat! Someone needs to teach me how to do that.
The lower kids divisions made legobots:
The ZOO:
Aliya's first time riding an animal on the merry go round...and she didn't want momma to help! (Asually she likes to sit on the bench)
One of my all time favorite zoo exhibits. Emperor Penguins and puffins!
The Children's Museum:
This place was amazing, but kind of a nightmare for kids under 6. However, I was able to figure out a way to keep track of both kids and we had an awesome time! This place is something to behold. Truly, it is unlike anything I have ever seen before. It is a child's DREAM!
Lets start at the beginning. When I walked in I immediately thought, "oh now, what in the world have I gotten into bringing a 2 and 6 year old here?" Sure enough, Dylan was lost within minutes. Saying, "sure go down that slide I will be right here" wasn't enough as the slide had 5 different outlets (that I didn't know of). I parked the stroller and took off looking for D, and after a long ten minutes, we found him with the help of employees on their walkees (D was one of 3 kids they were looking for at that moment...this place was insane!). Along with the fact that you could blink and lose your child, there were so many people and it was so loud! I knew Aliya was a bit unsure of it all, and so I developed a plan of action. It worked!
In my moment of panic, I couldn't help snap a pic of Aliya...she just looked too cute in her hat :)
We parked the stroller and took off upstairs in hopes of finding a quieter place to keep an eye on the kids. Aliya stayed at my hip for about the first 2 hours while we all explored the place. She enjoyed watching the kids (Dylan) do his thing, but she was a bit unsure of it all. I would be too!
Upstairs we went to the circus and watched a show, and then we played in the skateless park:
The kids found a door in the wall, and of course, went in. It was dark with black lights so I was a little apprehensive about it, but as I followed them in I realized it was a maze. Fun right? Wrong. As you went through the maze, the ceilings came down lower and lower to the point where I had to yell to the kids to stop and turn around because I couldn't follow them in any more. Aliya just kinda laughed at me when I told her to stop...Look at that face: Ha! Luckily I had Dylan behind her so she couldn't go in any further.
I would have had to army crawl through this! NO THANK YOU!
Outside Dylan begged to play and I found a place a bit more private where Aliya and I could keep an eye from afar on him while enjoying ourselves at the same time. Here is Alya wathcing Dylan find his way to the airplane. I think she was a little confused as to why the airplane was hanging in the air...so we had a nice discussion about it. :)
DD is in the blue tower going up...you wee him?
I think Dylan is that little person up in that highest wire tunnel thing. He had no fear!
Its like a Dr. Seuss book. He is at the top of that onion looking thing way over there waving at us!
Aliya and I watched Dylan through this red fire truck. She played in this thing for about an hour or so I kid you not. It was a great time waster while Dylan was doing his thang.
Reunited at last:
Aliya over the course of the day started to lose her inhibitions and wanted to do more "grownup" things like her cousin:
She went down this slide!!!It was 2 stories long! Don't worry she layed on my lap...and LOVED it :) I think we ended up doing this about 3 times. If it weren't for the stairs we would have done it a lot more. Sheesh!
After about 3 hours at this place we found a section built for smaller kids. It SAVED me! I sat down (for the first time during the day) and enjoyed watching the two of them play in a much safer and more confined environment. It was perfect! Aliya quickly parked herself on this movable tiger ride and rode it over and over for about 20 minutes. I don't think I have ever seen her giggle so much. It was hilarious. Look at that face!
The art was great for the kids to have a little unwind time and be out of the chaos. Dylan was at the clay area for most of the time
Here is where it got a little crazy. So as we were headed out to leave, Dylan asked if we could go look around on the first floor again and look at the caves one more time. I thought sure, it won't last longer than a few minutes before one of them gets claustrophobic and nervous. NOPE! 3 hours later we were walking out. 3! Aliya was BEGGING to play more in the "caverns" as she called them. This place was just a huge underground man made cave system. It was very cool, but small, dark, and painful to crawl through. Who knew the kids would love it so much? The two of them just took turns leading the way as we followed and had fun finding different new ways and tunnels to go through.
Here was the view from down below from the 15 story slide.
Overall we had an amazing time and even as we were laving aliya said she wanted to go back to the "caverns". they could have played there ALL night!
The Arch:
on our last day together we went to the famous Arch. sadly, the reflection of the sun made it so that we couldn't even capture the arch in a photo. Haha at least I tried! (And at least It was fun watching these kids play together.)
The last day of the competition. Team 1717 had the BEST robot by far, but FIRST sadly had a lot of technical difficulties on the field that kept them from winning the whole thing. It was sad, BUT, it was a great experience for all that was involved! I hope to see you next year St Louis!
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