Ellwood the Owl's Visit

Jack's class at school had a friend come visit this summer, Ellwood the Owl.  Each Orange Bird had the opportunity to take Ellwood home for the weekend and journal about their fun time with Ellwood.  This weekend was our turn and we were excited to show Ellwood our favorite parts of this town.

Kenny had been out of town for a few days for work last week, which meant Momma was TIRED by Friday night.  Since we had such a fun-filled weekend planned on top of that, we were sure to get to bed early Friday night so we had plenty of energy for the fun ahead.  Jack read Ellwood a book about Spidey before they turned in for the night.

Ellwood brought a few books with him too, which was a lot of fun. Jack's favorite was the journal Ellwood brought that told all about his fun with the other Orange birds.  He asked Kenny to read it twice!

Saturday morning, bright and early, we took Ellwood to the Farmer's Market.  We go most every Saturday morning and we just knew Ellwood would love it.  

As usual, our buddy Emerson was there, so Ellwood got to hang out with him too!   

Then it was time to go home and get ready for our other, almost weekly trip, to the library!

Ellwood found a perfect perch on Jack's bike.

Jack picked out books about sea creatures and shared a few with Ellwood.  It's sea creature week at school this week AND, it's getting really close to beach time for us!

Then it was off to the Science Museum!  We'd planned to take Ellwood and Jack to the Children's Museum to see Spidey but Jack said he didn't want to see Spidey until he was a grown-up.  So we skipped that and opted for the Science Museum instead.  Jack's been asking to go since we went to see an Imax film a month or so ago (Sea Rex).  So we thought it was a good time to go and show Ellwood the museum too.

We had a good time, though the lines to get in were so long we didn't get to stay too long.  That's ok though, we can go back anytime since we bought a membership!  Max loved it!  Yay for the Science Museum!

That was all the fun we could fit into one day for Ellwood but Sunday was fun-filled too!  We'd planned to go for a walk on the North Bank of the River but we woke up to the strange sight of rain!  So we scrapped those plans and decided to check out the Children's Museum instead.  We'd seen how packed the parking lot was the day before when we were at the Science Museum so we hoped that everyone had gotten their fill and the place would be empty.  That wasn't entirely true, but it wasn't so bad.  Both boys had a wonderful time and I think Ellwood did too! 

Jack wasn't a fan of CMoR when he was Max's age so I anticpated carrying Max a lot while Jack played, but I was so wrong!  He LOVED the crawler area and just had a ball!

After a good long nap, we decided to take Ellwood out for one more adventure before it was time for him to head back to school.  A quick stop at the Capitol to check out the boys' bricks seemed like a perfect trip for an owl trying to see the very best of Richmond.

While we were out we hopped over to check out the canal walk for a minute too.  We were so excited to be outside after weeks of sweltering heat!  Ellwood clearly needed to see the river too!

After so much fun, Ellwood was ready for a good night's sleep. He checked out Max's bed before settling in with Jack for one last night with us.  

I was really impressed with how amenable Jack was to taking him everywhere.  He called him his owl buddy and really got into it.  He's not a fan of pictures, so sometimes that was a little challenging, but he never wanted to leave Ellwood behind and was happy to have him tucked beneath his arm.  Monday morning when it was time to take Ellwood back to school Jack said he had some more places he wanted to show Ellwood and asked if he could come back another time!  Thanks to Miss Cristin for this great idea and opportunity.  We continue to be in love with our daycare situation and it's things like this that just remind us how lucky we are to have such a great place to send our boys everyday.


We really enjoyed your visit Ellwood and hope that you enjoyed our favorite places as much as we did!  Thanks for coming to see us and we hope you enjoy the rest of your summer with the Orange Birds!