Aladdin

Today, I took the boys to the Amarillo Little Theater to see a local production of Disney's Aladdin.



We went with our local homeschool group, and the play was really well done.  I think the kids enjoyed it.

We are also watching the Disney movie here at home, for a thorough Aladdin experience.

Phenomenal cosmic powers!  Itty bitty living space!

Edit:  I almost forgot!  When Aladdin and Jasmine were getting onto the flying carpet for their big flight and song number, just before they started singing "A Whole New World," Lex chimed in with, "I Believe I Can Fly," which he sings on the regular.  It wasn't too loud, so it was just perfectly hilarious.

Amarillo Opera

We went to see a performance of The Thunder of Horses by the Amarillo Opera this morning.



It was really good.  The entire cast was made up of children of various ages, and they all did a really good job.  I can't believe how loud and clear some of the little kids were able to sing!

The show was about an hour long, and it told a fable about how the Native Americans of this area came to domesticate horses.

We went with our local homeschool group, and we had the entire balcony to ourselves.  The main floor was filled with school groups, and I noticed that when the lights were dimmed and everyone got quiet, a ton of the school kids below were coughing and sneezing and sniffling.  I was kinda glad that we were sitting upstairs, because no one in our group seemed to be sick.

Afterwards, we went across the street to the main library branch to do our homeschool lessons for the day.



 It was fun to do our homeschool in a location other than home.  I always like it when we take our homeschool to the library.  Connor wanted to be extra quiet this time, so instead of talking to me about his assignments, he kept texting me.  It was funny, since we were sitting right next to each other.

Children's Museum of Houston

Today it stormed all day, which put an end to our daily pool visit.  We had to find something else to do, so I looked up all the places in Houston where we could use our COSI membership, and then we headed to the Children's Museum of Houston.

Our first stop once we got there was the Fresh Cafe.  Unlike COSI, you cannot pack your lunch.  So, while we got in for free with our membership, I spent $30 on brunch and snacks and parking during our visit.



I'm not really complaining about that, though.  I had some black bean and corn tacos that were delicious!

After the Fresh Cafe, we visited Kidtropolis.  It is an entire pretend city.  There are all sorts of businesses, and when you do a job at one, you get a paycheck.  There is a bank where you can deposit your play paychecks, and each kid is given an account with a debit card.  There are ATMs all over the city, and you can spend your pretend money at the diner or the grocery store or the vet.  The really neat thing is the we get to keep the debit cards, and the bank accounts stay active from visit to visit.  The boys each opened an account and did jobs at the FedEx delivery center and at the stock market.  Connor made $50 trading sugar on the commodities market!

We played with these huge interlocking building blocks for probably an hour.  We built this small clubhouse first, and then we built one twice as big that both boys could play inside.

Another area that we spent a lot of time in was the outdoor water play area called Flow Works.  It was still drizzling rain a bit, so it didn't matter as much when the sprays from the exhibits went a little wide.  Or vice versa.

These flowers were outside near the water play area, and I have never seen anything like them before.  I want to grow them at my new house.  Any ideas on what they could be?



My guess is some sort of clematis, but I really have no idea.

There is also a children's theater in the museum, and we saw a live performance of a super hero drama.  There was singing and dancing and grown up actors.  It was really well done, and I think it was Lex's favorite part.  I expect that we will see many more performances in that theater.

We probably only saw half of the exhibits on the main level, and we never even set foot into the lower level.  So, we must go back.

Fortunately when we left, it had stopped raining.  We got soaked on our way into the museum earlier in the day, so I took this photo on the way home.  Note that the boys each have a milk carton for the ride home.  The Fresh Cafe is the only area we visited twice!