Hello everyone! I am one tired mama this morning! I keep telling myself I can rest after such and such – and then something else comes up! Lol. Oh well – all too soon we will be deep into winter and not doing anything at all really, so it’s best to get out there and let Wyatt experience as much as possible while we can (and have some myself too)

Last Friday, we kicked off our school season with a field trip to The Henry Ford Museum. Wyatt is starting a big prehistoric unit in science this fall, and I love to try to find a field trip at the beginning of the year that correlates with something we are going to learn about. Lucky for me, we were able to squeak in under the wire for the Dinosaurs exhibit at the museum, two days before it was set to end. I am glad we made it, because we both had a really good time.

The artist who created these, John Payne, welded the metal and steel together to create these huge sculptures. Wyatt and I also talked about this, how art doesn’t have to just be paintings or sketches, it can be these enormous dinosaurs made out of steel, fire and heat. The exhibit is called Dinosaurs in Motion, and it is interactive. Half of the dinosaurs could be moved and manipulated using old fashioned pulley systems, and we could pull ropes, levers, spin wheels -there were all sorts of different ways to activate the pulleys. And let me tell you, those dinosaurs were heavy! Wyatt and I would be pulling or pushing together and sometimes I had to put my whole weight behind it. There was just one dinosaur I couldn’t really budge, and a young twentysomething man asked if we needed some extra oomph! I said yes and he helped Wyatt get that dinosaur really moving!

The other half of the dinosaurs were activated by computer, and you can see Wyatt at the controls in the one photo. All of they exhibits you could press buttons and make the dinosaurs roar, and flash lights like lightning and play storm sound effects; the computer versions you could do that plus use controls to move them around. It was really really cool, and I felt like we were in the movie Jurassic Park. Wyatt could not get over how big that T-Rex was, and kept giving it the side eye. He was a little skeptical of it at first.

The exhibit was a fantastic way to kick off school and I was so glad that we went.

On Saturday, Wyatt had like the perfect Wyatt day. Billy and I also very much enjoyed ourselves, especially the autumn weather that we were having! We took a drive out to Grosse Pointe Park, to a children’s bookstore named Coreanders. It was so whimsical, adorable, and I wanted to spend hours in there. It was not very big, but just big enough. The walls are covered in beautiful murals, including the entire elevator shaft. The elevator to the second floor has a window in the door, so that as you go up or down, you can view a mural on the way. It is spectacularly done. I was also so happy that they were wheelchair accessible!

There is also a cafe/ice cream shop in the back, and we of course had to pop in for coffee and cookies which we ate in the courtyard. It felt like we were in New Orleans, with the wrought iron, the brickwork, the garden. Tucked in and hidden about the garden were little garden statuary, little animals reading or just hiding, and we enjoyed looking at them all and picking our favorites. Also – the cookie was delicious, and was made at a nearby boulangerie, name LeRouge. Wyatt picked out a book, I picked out a book, and also grabbed a few cute bookmarks. I love them – they are designed by Ingrid Press and they are beautiful! I should never have looked up that website because now I want everything!

We walked around the cute little area, wandered through a farmers market that was just closing up but I still managed to buy a bag of loose tea from Outer Realm teas. I bought the Royal Tea and we are going to brew a pot up over the weekend.

When we went home, we painted as we had not managed to fit art in over during the week. Wyatt is studying Charley Harper for a few weeks and I wanted to fit in the first lesson. Then we had game night! I think all three of us crashed out that night!

Sunday was much more relaxed. I went to church in the morning, then we hung out at home for the afternoon, just relaxing and doing whatever. Dinner was an adventure though. We were planning on watching The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for Comfy Cozy Cinema that evening, so we thought it would be fun to get Indian food as well. And goodness, I am so glad that we did. It was fantastic. We ordered from a place called Charminar Biryani House in Detroit and it was delicious. We couldn’t decide what to get, everything looked amazing, so we ordered Butter Chicken and Tandoori chicken, and split it with some buttered naan bread (Wyatt had a different dinner although he seriously missed out).

Needless to say, it was a very packed weekend. This week though, is a much slower pace right now. School, and finishing up some errands and projects for scouts tomorrow night – it will be our first meeting! I am super nervous about it! Tonight I still need to make game paddles for a game we are playing, and put together the little beaded keychain kits for every kit, that they are going to make while learning about the pack laws. (Be kind, etc) Wish us luck everyone!

Here are a few photos from the roll!

And that is it from me today! I hope you all have a wonderful day and do something today that makes you smile!