Field Trip Friday - Grapevine

Today we had intentions of going to a church in Grapevine that does a free play day for the kids. On their website it looked fun, but when we got there it was closed. They only allow a certain number of kids in, and they close it. It would have been nice if they advertised that on their website so that we could have been there earlier, but we actually ending up having a fun day.

Downtown Grapevine is a really cute little town. We went to the old train depot which is now a museum ran by the chamber of commerce. They were so excited to see us walk in with all our kids. They gave us a nice tour and we learned that Grapevine was originally called Grape Vine Prairie and they grew cotton. The huge cotton crops that they grew is why they got the train depot. But when they built DFW airport the land because to valuable for crops, and there are no more cotton farms in Grapevine - interesting huh!

After did our tour, they told us to go see the sculptor across the road and the glass blower. So we did. The sculptor was very nice and let the kids come in and he showed them how he make sculptures out of clay first, and then they are used as a mold for the iron casting. The thought it was great. I was also impressed the gentleman, when we asked him how he got into sculpturing he told us his story of being a cowboy in Australia and was hurt really bad in an accident. He was confined to a wheelchair for years, and during that time he started sculpturing. He is now a world renowned artist.

The glass blower was fun - but made me so nervous. As we were walking in through the store I started noticing the prices on his glass products. They ranged from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars. All I could think of was my little Tasmanian devil Drew getting loose from me and see everything come crashing down.

After our impromptu tour of old town Grapevine we took the kids to Rainforest Cafe. Miles and three of Kathy's kids had earned a free lunch from school....so we thought why not reward our great kids. They kids loved the cafe, and watching all the animals come to life every few minutes.

Then it was out to brave the Texas heat of the afternoon with Letterboxing. Today we found our first hitchhiker. We caught the "Swine Flu". I hitchhike is a stamp that you find, and then you take it with you and move it to the next letterbox that you go to. So we took it and will hide it next time. We were trying to find 4 stamps today, but we only got the first one. When it got to the second one, it was covered with poison ivy, and it was to hot to continue on to the next one. This one that we were trying to find was on the bike route that went around the lake. I told my kids that we would try to do it in the fall after the poison ivy dies and bring our bikes.

Me and Kathy - we are the two crazy mom's that take off with 10 kids and are having a fun summer doing it.