Evan and Lauren's Cool Blog

Monday, June 17, 2013

6/17/13: Day Out With Thomas at Edaville USA

On Father's Day we went to Day Out With Thomas The Go Go Thomas Tour 2013 at Edaville USA in Carver, MA. This event is so much fun and I can't even count how many times we have gone, but every time we have a great time.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!
Here is Daddy with the kids on the train. When you buy your tickets you are assigned to a train at a certain time.

Here we are on the train. Evan loves train rides. He loves just looking out the window as we ride on the train.

Posing with a cool train.

Of course you get to meet Sir Topham Hatt when you are there. The kids like meeting him every time. Kids get stamps at several spots around the park and Sir Topham is a stamp spot. When they get all of their spots stamped they get a little prize. This year it was a Mega Bloks Thomas.

The event runs June 21st-June 24th, August 31st, September 2nd, September 6th-8th. You can buy tickets here for $20 each. I suggest buying them in advance but you can buy them at the park the day you go.

The kids have fun in the playground area. There are swings, a slide, sand box, trains and lot of cool stuff to play on.

We have been taking a picture with Lauren in the Rhino's mouth since she was little.

We even did some fishing.

Evan thought this was cool.

Daddy even caught a fish! This was the first time we caught one. We threw him back right after.

The nice thing about attending this even at Edaville Railroad is that they have rides too. The carousel was recently painted and looks great. We also had fun on the bumper cars, caterpillar ride, tilt-a-whirl, and other rides.

Having fun on the horses.

I love the first time you see Thomas chugging on the tracks.

The park is going through renovations and we have seen such an improvement in the last few years. Below you can see a new Master Plan that includes a water play area, Go Kart track, Dino Land (to open in the Fall) Flume ride and a roller coaster. I suggest you Like the Edaville Facebook page to stay up to date. You can also follow them on Twitter: @EdavilleUSA

Here you can see some work clearing for future construction.

Bye Thomas, see you next year when you visit again from Sodor.

I highly suggest if you want an affordable day out join Thomas on his Day Out at Edaville USA.

Disclosure: I received a family four pack of tickets to this event to promote it. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

6/15/13: Baton Show 2013

Today was Lauren's Baton Twirling show. She did so well. She was in two routines plus Finale. Here she is with their State Championship routine. Watching her brings back such great memories of when I twirled.

The girls competed with this routine for the first time this year in a State Competition and won. They did this routine to the song "Disney Parade". We were so proud of them.

Then they did a Happy Birthday routine complete with balloons and horns.

They were so cute.

The horns really woke people up.

Lauren has improved so much in twirling. I am so proud of her.

She is such a performer and never gets nervous before shows. Here she is doing two baton as part of the routine.

More with two batons.

A little trick putting the baton in her leg while twirling the other one.

In this routine they each got their own little solo part.

Then they did the Finale routine with glow batons.

All of the girls did an awesome job in the show.

Here is Lauren getting her gift bag from her teacher. It had a Twirling T-Shirt in it. She was so excited and put it on over her dress on the way home.

Here she is with her teacher Maureen Dunn.

She was so excited about the bag.

Look at that look of excitement over the shirt.

Great job Lauren!!!!

Friday, June 14, 2013

6/14/13: Kindness Kingdom Review and Giveaway

Kids love games right? What better way to teach them good manners than by playing a game. Recently I received Kindness Kingdom from Marvelously Well-Mannered. This is such a unique game in the fact that it teaches kids good manners but in a fun way. As one of my lucky readers you have a chance to win a copy of the game below.

I knew that my daughter would like this game, however my son wanted to play too and had a great time. Kids ages 5 and up take turns answering etiquette questions from eight areas including: home, powder room, dining room, sports, out and about, celebrations, school and communications. Questions include if you should hand out birthday invitations at school, good sportsmanship questions, and more. A lot of these skills and questions you assume your child may know the answer to, but in many cases they may not know. This is a fun way to teach them. My kids really got in to it and even augmented their answers with examples of others that they know that may not do things correctly.

Then kids get "charms" to add to their bracelet to win. The game makes it really fun for kids to go over these important life lessons that kids should know and we often overlook. They had fun with the interaction and the different categories. My son especially liked the sports and celebration questions.

I think these are great lessons and I was interested to see what my kids would do in certain social situations. It was refreshing to hear them pick answers that were appropriate and be kind to others. I think it is a great tool for parents to see what their kids would do in certain situations and if it is the wrong answer explain why it might be wrong.

Here it is as packaged. Of course little girls are drawn to this game, look at how pretty it looks. Jessica Marventano, who is certified to teach manners and universal rules of etiquette to young children and teens by the International School of Protocol, came up with the idea for Kindness Kingdom. It is the first board game from parent company Marvelously Well-Mannered and is made in the USA.

It is sold online at www. KindnessKingdom.com and at amazon.com. Here is the game board. Lots of bright colors and jewel shaped spots which my daughter loved. I really think this is a wonderful game and one that you should play with your kids.

Win one by entering through the Rafflecopter below.

Disclosure: I received this game for review purposes. No other compensation has been received and all opinions are my own.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

6/14/13: Dance Recital 2013 - Lights, Camera, Action

Last weekend we had our Dance Recital. Lauren did Jazz and Tap, Evan did Hip Hop and I did Tap. Yes you did read that right, I did Tap. I am in an adult class and despite every year me saying I am not doing the recital some how I end up doing it. When else do you get that rush of going on stage?

How cute do they look together?

First Lauren did Tap. I was excited to see her trying out Tap this year for the first time now that she is old enough to do it.

They were called Oscar Winners and had trophies. The theme was Lights, Camera, Action.

They did so awesome! I was so proud of her.

Great job girls!

Here is some video of their performance.

Then Evan did his Hip Hop routine to The Men in Black.

They were so adorable!

Love it! I was yelling for Evan when he was performing.

Then they put on sunglasses. How adorable.

Here is video of The Men in Black.

Then Lauren did Jazz to Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot. Hers was called Bikini Beach.

They came out from behind umbrellas.

There was a lot of shaking in this routine which Lauren loved.

So cute!

It is amazing the difference I see in the kids remembering their routines just in the few years. This was Lauren's 4th recital and she is only 6!

Here she is with one of her best friends.

Here is video of her Jazz routine.

Then last but not least was me in my Tap routine. We even had a guy in our routine with his daughter which was great. It is so much fun taking my adult tap class.