Discover The Dinosaurs

We surprised Jack, and kind of Maggie, this weekend.  I say, 'kind of Maggie' because it really wasn't  her thing.  We thought Jack truly deserved it after working so hard at karate, baseball and school here lately.  Not to mention, he's my extra set of hands these days.  Being the oldest is hard work, "Jack will you grab me a diaper?, Jack will you get Maggie some milk?, "Jack will you help Maggie put on her pjs?", "Jack will you...?".  See what I mean.

So we told the kids we were going to dinner.  After 45 minutes in the car they started to get a little suspicious.  Not to mention, I narrated the trip with, "geez, I'm as hungry as a dinosaur" and "this line of cars is as long as a T-Rex tail" over and over again.

We drove north of the city to Discover The Dinosaurs.  It wasn't so far north that it should have taken 45 minutes, but that's rush hour traffic for you.  Against all my parenting principles I finally turned on a movie to divert their suspicion {and impatience}.

When we arrived, both kids had a look of bewilderment on their face.  Jack had requested pizza and the Trade Center certainly didn't resemble any pizza joint he had ever seen before.  After walking inside, turning in our tickets, and reading the giant Jurassic Journey sign, they still weren't getting it.

I finally broke the news with, "surprise!, we tricked you, we are really going to a dinosaur show!".  As you can imagine, Jack was thrilled.  Like this is the best night of my life thrilled.  Maggie had more of an expression of, 'oh' followed by, "are there any princesses here?".

It took Maggie a nice warm up of about 20 minutes, but by the Stegosaurus bone display she was digging it.  If I had to guess her brother's exuberance had something to do with it.

Upon arrival we were given a Scavenger Hunt sheet to complete.  We were able to turn it in at the end for a prize.  Jack thought the prize was a trip to the DinoStore.  {which we graciously gave in to}  We did a lot of exploring.  All of the dinosaurs were real working machines.  There were buttons to push to make them roar and move.

It was pretty loud in there and very dark.  Jack loved every bit of it.  And he requested, yes he requested, a picture with nearly every dino.

This is where Maggie finally came out of her shell stroller.  Maybe it was because bones don't roar.  Either way, Jack was very excited to have a fellow explorer by his side.

The dino dig was a huge success for both kids.  They may have stayed there all evening if I didn't tell them about the play area at the end of journey.

And this is when we really couldn't get them out of there and I really was getting as 'hungry as a dinosaur'.  We did dino bounce houses, a dino mechanical ride, a giant dino slide {which I had the pleasure of joining the kids for}, and a dino maze.

I think Jack may have told Clay and I "thank you for tonight" at least every other display and then about five more times in the play area.  It certainly made my issues with the dirtiness and the clientele well worth it.  I must note a really large bottle of hand sanitizer is a must.

Aside from that, it really was a wonderful family outing.  And just like Jack said, "this is one of the best nights of my life".   Adore that dino loving boy!