The Cottage! The Cottage!

Sorry for the delay in my usually blistering blog-updating pace, but we were at The Cottage. Yes, The Cottage. Us!

Our neighbors invited us and the other families on our block with small children to spend Sunday at their The Cottage, which is on a lake about an hour west of here. In all seriousness, it was a ton of fun. Henry got to go for a canoe ride, which he loved. He also had a blast on the trampoline. The kids got along well, and the ratio of grownups to children was favorable enough for the former to relax and enjoy a sunny, laid-back day on the water's edge. Even I went for a canoe ride! We capped off the day with a marshmallow roast around the campfire before heading back to the city.

And that wasn't our only road trip of the weekend. On Saturday we made a return visit to Henry's new favorite place on earth, Prehistoric World. This is a distinctly old-school roadside attraction where you pay money to walk around on some guy's property and look at the life-size statues of dinosaurs he built out of concrete. The owner is obviously a grown-up dino enthusiast who figured out how to generate some income from his favorably situated property. (Henry is already putting together his business plan for a Prehistoric World of his own. Look for it in 2030.) Surprisingly, it was Dexter who really loved the statues. Henry thought they were okay.

What really enthralled him was the Dino Dig Pit, which is a big sandbox laced with faux fossils you discover as you're digging around. Henry went completely apeshit for this. I can understand why. He spends most of his free playtime outdoors "digging for fossils" and pretending that the stones and sticks he finds are dinosaur parts. But the game's getting old for him. On several occasions he's express his frustration with "pretend fossils," asking why he never finds REAL fossils. (It's really getting to him -- lately he's been taking our hammer to a large rock in our garden in the hopes that eventually it will yield a velociraptor fossil if he just keeps smashing it.) So he just loved digging through the sand and uncovering these true-to-life dino parts.

So, it was a busy long weekend with a lot of time spent in the car, but totally worthwhile. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera to The Cottage, but my neighbor was taking pictures, so maybe I'll be able to post a few shots later.