The Fair Park Trifecta Weekend!

Confession: Before I lived in Colorado, I lived in North Texas (not counting time in college) for 11 years. And never once had I been to Fair Park! Last weekend for the Irish Festival was the first time ever. So it is no surprise that I had absolutely no clue all the cool stuff (especially for kids!) there is to do there. Well, we went after it with gusto, and we did pretty much ALL of it!

We started out by going to the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science to see Dinosaurs: Unearthed! With Dresden's limited foray into the world of paleontology being relatively positive (read: watching "Dino Dan" and getting excited when dinosaurs are on screen), we thought he might be interested. Plus, let's face it, as parents, half the "cool" stuff you do with your kids is really because you are channeling your inner-8-year-old and want to do it yourself, and we were no exception. Does anyone really ever outgrow the awesomeness that is "dinosaurs"? Actually, the coolest part of the exhibit was the animatronic Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus Rex in the lobby because they were "to scale". We probably could have stayed there in front the whole time and walked back and forth between them, and Dresden would have been set for life! I was just really happy he didn't shriek in terror when the T-Rex roared and moved around. The life-sized lobby test proven successful, we headed into the exhibit itself. Admittedly, these are not the best pictures because the lighting was dimmed to create the nice, paleolithic ambience. (I really have no idea what paleolithic means, it just sounded like it fit).

Um, Dresden, I don't mean to alarm you, but...

Waving in front of the hadrosaur

Allosaurus head

Some shots from out in the lobby:

Mr. T

Dresden looking up at Mr. T in awe...

Future Paleontologist?

After the dino exhibit we headed to the Children's Museum since it was in the same building. It was nice to just let Dresden wander around and not have to worry he would break anything. My biggest worry was the infestation of germs I was sure were just crawling all over everything (I'm kind of a germaphobe. Ok, I'm a huge germaphobe, but the phobia mostly attacks in public places). Still, I just tried to remind myself he was just sick so surely his immune system is heightened, and that he would get a nice hot bath later. Okay, enough about my neuroses. We didn't get any pictures, but Dresden got to sit on a stool and milk a cow, which I thought was so fun, and he had a good time climbing up (and doing some more sitting on top of) a slide, trying on firemen gear (the germs really got to me here), and playing the xylophone. And then he got to see some snakes in their terrariums (is that what snakes live in?), which he thought was pretty fantastic.

Because of Dresden's propensity to sit at the tops of slides and rarely go down them, I told Alex I decided his memoir is going to be "My Life At The Top of The Slide" (can't you just hear the metaphorical, symbolic undertones?)

Shout out to "One Fish, Two Fish" Chuck T's!

My handsome little fireman!

Playing the xylophone

We interrupted our regularly scheduled programming for a brief intermission:

And then it was on to our third and final stop, the Fair Park Children's Aquarium. For being just a tiny aquarium, it had a lot of cool stuff! We saw horseshoe crabs, which were there for the kids to touch with a staff member talking about them and showing the kids what to do, and jellyfish, a couple of nautilus-es(?), nautil-ae(?), an AWESOME sea turtle with two injured fins (poor guy), who was ornery and kept pecking at the glass as we stood in front of him, and the highlight, Stingray Bay, to name only a few features. Stingray Bay was outside, and it was two big pools with wooden decks built around and above them. One pool had little stingrays, while the other one had two huge Zebra Sharks, several bonnethead sharks (relatives of the hammerhead), a few white-tipped fin sharks that didn't swim much and hung out on the bottom, and two HUMONGOUS Southern Sting Rays. You could see them from above, or there was a portion on the side that was glass for viewing them, which is where we stood the whole time so Dresden could see. Poor kid wasn't phased by a gigantic, roaring T-Rex, but as soon as a sting ray floats by behind thick glass, he was TERRIFIED. But in an adrenaline-junkie kind of way. He'd go "Nooo! Nooo!" and because we kept telling him "It's okay!" he'd try to convince himself by repeating, "Okaaay! Okaaay!" over and over while he was quivering. But they'd swim away and he'd go "Come here! Again!" as soon as they left. It was pretty hilarious, and adorable, of course. We stood there to let him watch in his mixture of awestricken terror and elation for probably over half an hour. Pictures were, again, hard to come by because of the inability to get both the sharks and Dresden in focus at the same time, but Alex did manage several artsy "reflections in the glass" shots.

Skeptical about the whole "I can see through the glass but I'm protected by it" concept...

Close encounter (you can see the fear in his chin, lol!)

"Okay, explain this to me again...HOW can they not leap through the glass and attack me?!"

(my son takes after me with his transactional trust issues!)

One of the zebra sharks

Mr. Ray

One of said "artsy" shots

We got to Fair Park at around 10:30, and drove away at 4:30. Needless to say it was a looooonnnnng day, but Dresden had so much fun, and it was well worth it. For the most part he was so well behaved, too, especially taking into account his mere 45-minute stroller nap. He had a few brief meltdowns at the aquarium, but was generally happy as a clam...sorry, I had to do it ;-) I remarked that if the little Fair Park aquarium was this nice, I couldn't wait to see the big Dallas Aquarium. Perhaps next weekend...? As much as I like to spend weekends (and let's be honest, pretty much every day, being lazy), I am definitely making an extra effort to look out for and plan day trips and events for our little family, so we can expose Dresden to as many sights and sounds as possible, and keep him entertained. I often feel bad for him during the week because we just stay home most of the time, so the weekends are a way to make up for that. I am admittedly drained of all my energy right now, but that's okay; watching the little man explore and become excited by new things is all worth it. 

What did y'all do this weekend? I hope you all had a good one.

Love,

Cassie