Frost Birthday Fun Day

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to try something new for the kids' birthdays. I love giving a great gift but hate searching the store for a gift just to have one to give. What I really love to do is spend time with people. I decided the younger Frost kids were at a great age to start doing a special day together rather than buying a gift. They have so many aunts and uncles they don't miss that one gift anyway! This year I could not think of the perfect thing to do, then yesterday it hit me... they would LOVE a scavenger hunt. So I wrote up some clues for our special day. Enjoy! 

The clues are all written and it's time to pic up the kids.

They were so excited to get their first clue and quickly figured out we were heading to Dunkin Donuts. 

                          Both of them are so cute and sweet...and eager to start the scavenger hunt.

                                We began our day with donuts... one of their very favorite treats.

 At the end of breakfast Laney read our second clue and off we went to "..the place where the animals stay". I told them they could each pick one animal to see so that we didn't spend our whole day there. When we walked in we saw a sign for the new baby elephant, Kenzie, so they decided they wanted to see her. The sky was getting dark and the River's Edge forces you to follow a long path to see the elephants. We followed along quickly in hopes of beating the rain. We stopped to snap a pic in front of a huge hippo.

 Finally, we got to the elephants. BUT this guy isn't the baby...he had huge tusks.

 When we turned the corner the rain started to drip. We stepped back under some trees as the rain started coming down. AND THE BABY ELEPHANTS came out to play! We watched them but the rain quickly became too heavy for the trees to block and we were getting wet. We decided to run for it and took off for cover. We came to a rock formation and stood under there. It was lightning and thundering but the kids were so brave.

 Then, both the baby elephants came to join us. They splashed around in the water right in front of us. The kids absolutely loved it. I can't tell you how many times I have been to the zoo and I have never gotten a show like that. It was really very cool. We watched them and I tried to snap pictures as they swam and played.

 Finally, the rain let up (barely). Judging by my radar on my phone it wasn't going to get much better. We decided we better risk it and took off across the zoo. Everybody we passed was just hanging out under cover as we sprinted to the Living World building. The kids were laughing and having a great time but we were soaked head to toe. This is them (still in awesome spirits) in the doorway of the zoo as the rain continued to fall.

 Finally, we were back in the car and heading to our next stop. When we passed the World's Fair Pavilion I couldn't believe this...that waterfall on the left is supposed to be stairs for people to walk up! Tons and tons of rain.

 The next stop as the Science Center. The kids puts on long sleeves I had in the back of my car in order to keep a bit warmer in the AC. We looked through the glass on the bridge.

                                        They enjoyed playing with the binoculars for a while.

                                                            Even looking at each other.

       Then they wanted to build an arch. They did a great job working together on this project.

 They also wanted to build the big arch which was much more difficult. Luckily another family came along and we worked on this one together.

                            Despite all the hard work Trey was very eager to knock this one down...

                                                        The kids outside the planetarium.

                                  After the Science Center we headed to Qdoba for lunch.

                             Then we went bowling. They had a hard time figuring out this clue. I said something about the big ball to which Trey finally responded, "I can't believe we couldn't figure that out... You could have just said the ball had holes in it!"

Trey was so excited after every single time he rolled the ball. Delaney was a natural bowler with quite the arm.

                                                      My sweet little bowling buddies.

We almost ran out of time for our last activity (Tropical Moose) but luckily there was no line on this yucky day.

What a great day with the kids. They said multiple times, "Let's do this again next year!" I'd say it was a successful birthday.