Museum of Science & Industry

We made a fun family morning in the city to go to the MSI.  Since I work so many weekends in the summer, this was a fun way to get the guys to the city and hang out with them.   After our museum fun, I dropped the guys off at Maggie Daley park to  mini golf and explore while I got in a few hours at  my office.  They walked over to meet me before we all drove home together. 

 

Several neighbors had posted about this cool maze, and it was great!  I'm glad I wasn't in there alone, or I may have gotten lost and definitely would have been disoriented.

William is finally at the age where he can read and interact with all of the exhibits himself.  We took him when he was younger and a lot of things he thought were boring since he wasn't fully engaging in them.  Now for my math, science and history whiz, this place is his playground.

The highlight was the U-Boat tour.  The guys had been on it a few years back when we had family in town, but I didn't get to go that day.   And it turns out William didn't fully remember it, but now he has read and watched so much about WWII that he was full of knowledge and the thirst for more knowledge.  He asked the docent some really amazing questions; including some she couldn't answer!  I was a very proud mom.

4th Grade

Another summer come and gone.  Somehow this one seemed even faster than any other!   After a fun 10 days in Kansas, William was ready to see his buddies back at school.  His teacher's name is Erica Johnson, and she seems very passionate about teaching!   We haven't formally met her yet since we missed Meet the Teacher day while William was out of town.  But based on the emails home to the parents and a few email exchanges, we're excited about what the year will bring!

Same backpack, same lunch box, plenty of clothes, and school supplies delivered to the school, so really we just had to stock up on "school food" for the daily lunch box and snack box.   I also ordered him a new pair of sneakers once I saw the state of his current pair.  They didn't arrive until day 2 but they're now his daily favorites. 

He was a good sport posing for my comparison photos on the porch and in front of the school sign!  He kept telling me, "I know the routine.  I've got this."  Oh how true it is.  Will I look back and say that 9 was the magical age when my little boy became all grown up?! 

 

 

Kansas Summer

William finished up summer with a 10 day trip to visit Kansas and his grandparents.   He had an amazing time and has been invited back for next summer!  After 14 hours in the car to get McPherson, he was thrilled that Grandpa Roger took off several days of work for some outdoor fun activities.   

Fishing and target practice and tower climbing at Maxwell Game Preserve 

Impressing grandpa with his prehistoric knowledge and miniature golf skills at the new Derby dinosaur park

Hustling grandpa at the clubhouse and then cooling off with a nice swim

And the indoor shooting range - because now that he's older he gets to try out a pistol.   He apparently is a pretty good shot!  His bowling isn't that good with the bumpers.  I think the guide was a big help here though!

Ever the animal whisperer, he did more fishing (I think they did three different "ponds" in total over the week) and his biggest victory:  the corgis let him pet them.  He specifically told me how happy he was that "the girls" took to him better this summer.   He also had a big excursion with Grandma Joni to Hutchinson to the salt mines where they got to experience a ride in a mine car underground!  He has now pretty much hit every Central Kansas tourist attraction there is!  Next summer is just all fishing and gardening I guess! 

After a week in McPherson, the grandparents met up in Emporia so he could spend a weekend with Grandpa Ed and Grandma Hilary in Kansas City.   While he there he got to watch planes at New Century airport, walk in the Gardner police department fundraiser walk (apparently they were quite near the end thanks to his lethargy for being up so early and grandpa's knees!), and spend lots of time playing with his cousins!   When we finally collected him on Sunday, we could barely let him out of our sight.  We missed our favorite little guy.  And he even agreed to sit between us to snuggle on the flight home!

We were happy to get to spend time with family on Hilary's birthday.  And who doesn't love a celebration complete with sombrero and fried ice cream?!

Summer Camps

William did five weeks of day camps this summer split between two favorites from last summer:  Kids Science Lab and Naper Settlement.  He also got to spend several "partial" weeks at home due to travel that we had that straddled the weekend/week and time at his grandparents.    But I succeeded in my goal of not having him home playing video games 10 hours a day.  With his camps running from 9-3 every day, he only played for 4 hours a day! :-)

Kids Science Lab themes were Explorers,  Make Your Own Boat, and Remote Control Car camp.   Make your own boat wasn't the name but I signed him up for something called "Engineering" that week - so that's what my calendar says - but the camp director suggested he might prefer the more advanced building stuff camp so we all agreed to the switch.  At the end of the week he had this water worthy catamaran!   And at the end of Remote Control car camp, that's what he had!  It rode really smooth across our wood floors when he got it home!  This camp has a pretty generous duct tape and foam board budget!

Naper Settlement themes were Invention Dimension and what ended up being Camp Scrambler.   In what could have been my total nightmare, it turns out I never actually submitted the registration for Naper Settlement back in February when I thought I had.   Their sign up process is a little low tech and requires faxing or mailing in a piece of paper.  Turns out I faxed the paper to their phone number instead of fax number so it didn't go anywhere.  And I never noticed that they didn't take payment on my credit card.  I get so many emails from their mailing list that while I did think it odd that I didn't get a "reminders about what to bring to camp on Monday" email, I was really just too busy to notice.  The guys called me from the check in desk on morning one and I quickly figured out what had happened.   They let him stay that day and we got the enrollment figured out later.   But whatever week I had signed him up for later in the summer was already full so he did the Scrambler session.   Worked out fine.   But seriously, I had this kid's summer nailed down to the minute in February and now I'm having to scramble?!  (Pun intended!)  It all worked out just fine!

Monday at Magic Kingdom

Our last day arrived too early!  The McCorkles hit up Magic Kingdom first thing while the Shields family slept in a bit longer and finished packing.   We met up around 10:30 for another ride on Seven Dwarfs.   We had time for 7D, Haunted Mansion, Small World, Dole Whips and the dreaded (just for Hannah; it was fun for the rest of us) Splash Mountain before our final meal at Chef Mickey's. 

After four character meals and completely filling the autograph book, those kids were pros at photos!  And Michelle and I were getting to be pro photographers, too!  Moms enjoying our Cold Brew XO:

The restaurant was clearing out since it was 2 p.m., so all of the characters had plenty of time to hang out with us.  Pluto is a fan favorite and there was some dancing and playing before a lovely shot.

Goofy decided to get an assist from John during the autograph book signing.   He took that in good fun!

At one point 3 or 4 characters were all in our room and it was always Donald getting shafted in favor of Goofy and then Mickey.   Since Donald always signs Donald Duck #1 we enjoyed making lots of jokes about this and they all hammed it up.

Minnie had a funny moment when she was trying to sign each kid's book with a personal message.  I've seen several characters (princesses and others) flip to the front of the kid's book to find out their name.  Minnie doesn't talk, of course, so when she flipped open Hannah's book she sort of scratched her head and showed it to Michelle.  Hannah had her initials - HBM - which she pronounces Huh-bum.  We all start giggling, but Minnie is looking at Michelle as if it say, "No seriously, what's this girl's name?"  So we get the Hannah out and Minnie stops a Hanna and then turns to "ask" about a final h.   I'm sure she thought William's would be easier but this was our last character and his book was full so first she had to find a spot to sign! 

 Finally Donald!   The kids rewarded him with a #1 pose.

The McCorkles had an earlier flight than we did, so they left the resort after brunch.   John, William and I went back to the hotel for another swim.  With our dining plan we still had a lot of snack credits left so we got some bags of candy and trail mix to take home.  I finally got my favorite snack:  a caramel apple!  I carried it to the pool to snack on during the afternoon.  I ate one quarter and then closed the box and went back to swim.   When I came back a few minutes later, the box was open, peanut bits were scattered everywhere and a piece of the apple was on the floor next to my pool chair with a squirrel and bird snacking on it!  Guess that squirrel figured out how to open the box and get a piece out!  I was impressed with its ingenuity!  I was also disappointed to have to toss out my apple, but I had another credit left for a Mickey ice cream sandwich from the pool bar! 

All in all, a fun-filled family vacation and amazing trip to Disney World!   I'm so blessed that my birthday squad was amenable to all of my plans and photo ops!  It really made my birthday very special.

#BirthdaySquad

I couldn't just call this post Sunday at EPCOT because it's my 40th birthday!   This morning was a little slower after three long days.   Our brunch at California Grill (a first time for any of us to have this meal) wasn't until 10:30, so we headed to Magic Kingdom first for photos.  Yes, we totally just went in for photos and left again!  Luckily we were on the monorail and it was easy to go Grand Floridian to Magic Kingdom and then to the Contemporary.   The coordinating birthday shirts are courtesy of my talented crafting friend and Disney lover, Chao!   She helped modify a design I found online and then print and cut all of the pieces and sent them to me for ironing on.

Brunch was amazing!  This restaurant has only had Sunday brunch for a year or two so none of us had been before.   Included in our meal was blueberry mimosas, sushi bar, a hot entree (I had lobster eggs benedict), meats, cheeses, deviled eggs, salad, pastries, yogurt parfaits and some warm bourbon bun served with ice cream.   Oh, and then dessert!  We had them box up our dessert of macaroons and tarts and snacked on them the rest of the day. 

Our Fast Passes for the day were at EPCOT so we took the monorail over after brunch.    We also met up with Bob's brother, Andy, and his husband, Luke, at EPCOT.  Both of them work for Disney and were gracious enough to spend most of their days off with us.   In continuing with the bravery theme that Hannah established, I rode the one ride that I hate: Mission Space: a claustrophobic nightmare!   In between rain storms we also rode Soarin' twice, Spaceship Earth, Nemo, Figment and got photos with Baymax.  Somewhere along the way (ok, we sent them away), the four guys disappeared into World Showcase while the girls plus William did the kiddie rides.   We eventually collected them in the UK pub en route to Japan for our dinner at Teppan Edo.  Did I mention it was during a downpour?  But we were rewarded with a double rainbow!

Teppan Edo is a McCorkle family favorite but new to us.   Hibachi style is infinitely more fun with a group filling out the entire table!   We squeezed 9 into a table for 8 and laughed and ate and laughed and ate!  The waitress was not impressed with our drink orders (try the plum wine; I dare you!) but we enjoyed watching the chef as he cooked up our food and everyone (William included!) loved the food.   During dinner the Illuminations fireworks went off.   There is no such thing as a window view hibachi, but I did get a peek at them when I was up to use the restroom.   We could have extended dinner an extra half hour because when we finished it was pouring down rain.  So much so that we didn't want to leave the restaurant!  Finally there was a little break (thanks Weatherman Bob for the close radar monitoring!) and we walked very quickly over to Beach Club hotel to call for a Minnie Van.   Since Japan is in the back of the park we didn't want to risk the LONG walk to the monorail in case the rain unleashed again.   Oh, but you may remember than the Minnie Van doesn't fit our entire party!  This time Bob and Hannah sat out - or I should say they hitched a ride home in Luke's car. They actually beat us back to the villa!

 

 Another night out until late with an early morning alarm clock (and the dreaded final day) coming!