Marbles Museum and Easy Bake Ovens

You know what's great? Reciprocal museum memberships that let you get into other Children's Museums for free.

You know what else is great? Having one of those Children's Museums (Marbles in Raleigh) conveniently located between here and Goldsboro. (Notice Anneliese's well placed admission sticker?) Blake and I make a well-timed pit stop at Marbles, become the heroes for the day and it doesn't even cost us a penny. Score.

You know what's just as great? Yard sales. Easy bake ovens with ALL the extras for $4. And a morning of baking with my girls.

What's not so great? The crap that you make with those easy bake ovens. Seriously. Thank goodness my girls aren't picky when it comes to sweets. I think it's all about the hat anyway. Kate does rock a hat.

Dan Nicholas Park

Another day trip? Awesome Dan Nicholas Park in Salisbury. (While all this day trippin' may make it sound like I SO have my act together and planned a fantastic summer full of day trips and spectacular days of fun - in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that this was just the second day trip in a list of . . . . 2. Way to go mom.) AND we snagged the Crawfords for this one, too. LOVE those Crawfords. Just LOVE. So, park, playground, carousel, water fun, zoo, stick your head through the hole blah, blah, you get the idea. Great day.

Homeland Creamery

One of our day trips this summer was to Homeland Creamery - a family owned/operated dairy farm in Julian. Boy do I have a whole new appreciation of milk. And dairy farmers. A (loud) hay ride, a tour, and a chance to feed a baby cow later we finally got to the grand prize. Homemade ice cream. Yum!

And how did it smell? (the farm, not the ice cream) I'll let Anneliese give you a hint. (see below)

Yep - that's about right. And here are some more pictures from the stinkin' hot day.