Story Land

As you may recall Oliver went from throwing his milk in the trash (literally) to consuming upwards of 40 ounces a day of the white stuff. We have been working hard at reducing the pre-bed milk consumption especially since it has been consumed via bottle and not a glass. For several months the pre-bed milk, aka "milky," has been just 2 ounces. Like any good parent I offered Oliver a trade for his beloved milky - seven nights with no milky and he could go to Story Land. Every night he would get asked, "Milky or Story Land." Some night he chose Story Land, but the majority of nights he said, "I just love milky too much to make a trade."

One night, a little over a week ago, Oliver decided he was done with milky and he hasn't looked back. Living up to my end of the bargain, this past weekend we headed to Story Land. I remember going to Story Land when I was young and was giddy about the idea of my little family headed up and exploring the place.

We were lucky in that the weather was incredible and the place was not at all crowded. We went on a few rides:



But the majority of our time was spent in a place called the Loopy Lab -- a room filled with balls and vacuums and sling shots and other crazy ball collecting and shooting mechanisms. Oliver and Davis loved the place and Henni, once she figured out there were fun things to do with the balls other than eat them, decided it was a pretty great place too.


Although Oliver has no fear, Henni is a little dare devil. Oliver declined the roller coaster and some other crazy rides (which was a relief because neither Davis nor I like those kind of rides), but every time we walked by a crazy ride Henni tried her best to get over to it -- if she had been big enough I bet she would have spent the entire day riding the roller coaster.

So my giddiness about the weekend turned into a realization...we are not really the Story Land type. Yes, we had fun. But, at 11 AM on Sunday morning, just two hours after Story Land opened, when Oliver declared he was done at Story Land, I believe there may have been an audible sigh of relief by our entire family (well, maybe not Henni who was still pining over the roller coaster) as we made our way to the parking lot. It was the same relief that washed over us a few weeks ago when we retreated from the Children's Museum just 40 minutes into the adventure. In both cases we did have fun, but we tend to have much more fun riding bikes, going to the beach, hiking, or visiting the aquarium or science museum.