Today we had plans to go with our local homeschooling group to the Tennessee Valley Fair for a 'Down on the Farm' program. Since it is Tuesday and Paul is off....he was coming with us, but he also had class all morning- and we were going too. So we dropped him off as his first class at 9:20 and went on to our first destination:
Fort Kid
Fort Kid
I remember when they built this playground, they held a contest when I was in the 4th grade for us kids to design a playground. One of my friends won and they used some of her designs when it was constructed. It's huge. It's wood. Twists, turns, bridges, slides, tire swings, tunnels, towers....
An hour later we went on to destination #2....the McClung Museum on the UT campus. We go here a lot when we go with Paul to class. It's a small museum. Lots of artifacts, a few dinosaur fossils, Australopithecus skeletons, Native American art and lots of other archeological and geological history of Tennessee. No pictures there....I was busy holding a tired and hungry Lakin...
So on to #3....lunch in the UT Gardens. We've been here a handful of times in the summer...drawing plants, smelling flowers, IDing herbs, passing time....
After lunch we stopped to smell the roses.
Lots of them
Lots and lots of them
I think the orange were the family favorite
Purple roses have always been one of my favorite....
Once we smelled every variety of rose in the garden...we picked Paul up and headed to the Tn Valley Fair....
Where tired a little boy woke up to play in a bucket of wheat, and pet chickens and sheep and rabbits and horses and cows...
And envy the size of these butternut squash
And look at lots of antique tractors
They asked to go on rides and they asked for ice cream. I said the rides were pretty expensive and that we could get [cheaper] ice cream on the way home. And they said lets go. Not many kids can go to a fair and not care about the fancy rides and games. But you should have seen how excited they were at the vegetable display....true farm boys in the making
True farm boys indeed. This year my kids insisted on rides, so they both got two... and both of them chose the faris wheel at least once (Cyan used both her tickets there!). Isn't that funny. The faris wheel. Cracks me up.
ReplyDeleteI love the pictures of the roses. I could almost smell them from your little online garden tour there. :)
You are one fun mama.
Val
We drive through Knoxville a few times a year, and we've never stopped (except at that big Target right off I-40...Turkey Creek...or something like that). This post makes me want to stop! = )
ReplyDeleteI miss the fair every year!! Oh well, maybe next year...
ReplyDelete