September 2019 - Jurassic Quest

Allison turned 4 in September, so we took her to something we knew she would love - Jurrasic Quest! It's a touring exhibition that wouldn't be in our area until the end of December, but it was going to be in Pasco, WA the last weekend of September. Pasco is close to where our friends live in Richland, so we left on Friday the 27th after Oscar and Tyler were home and started our trip down. On the way we stopped for a bathroom break in Granger, WA, which just happened to be a dinosaur town. Next trip we'll have to spend a bit more time there.

And the next day it was all about dinosaurs! What was the first thing Allison did? - Rode a T-Rex of course! 

T-Rex was next to two other dinosaur rides. So of course they had to ride each one once before we could move on.

Next we took them over to the ones that walk around in a circle...sort of. They move very slow and have to be recharged multiple times a day, so they only get a few feet at a time.

 Triceratops kids

There were bounce houses, crafts, and other activities, but Allison just wanted to ride dinosaurs. I had to drag her away to do anything else.

We'd given Avery a roaring Triceratops for his birthday, which Allison played with after we arrived at our friends' house the previous night. When Allison saw this triceratops she said "I have one of those at Avery's house!"

I eventually got Allison over to the bounce houses. Normally she loves bounce houses, but she wasn't very interested. She just quickly did each one once then wanted to go back to riding dinosaurs. Tyler tired out quickly on the bunjee inflatable so he just laid on the ground for a couple minutes until they released him.

Spinning girl! She was clearly starting to get a little overstimulated. She wasn't having as much fun as she had been earlier, but she didn't want to stop and go back for a nap either. We figured we'd give her a break from the excitement by heading over to the main exhibition area.

The spinosaurus was my favorite. I hadn't realized just how big it was. The pictures don't do it justice. They had a sauropod that was even bigger, but all you could see was the neck. The spinosaurus was huge and in full view.

I couldn't remember the names of these two dinosaurs, but Allison knew they were a pachycephalosaurus and a parasaurolophus. She impressed the ride operators with her knowledge.

One of the dinosaurs is literally named Dracorex Hogwartsia. The horns reminded scientists of the dragons in the Harry Potter movies, though they think it might just be an immature pachycephalosaurus rather than its own species.

Baby dinosaurs!

We let Allison ride one more dinosaur then took her back to our friends' house for a nap. Tyler played with Tayla on the trampoline. If I'd been thinking about it better I would have grabbed some dinosaur crafts for him to work on while she napped.

Tyler did a few bounce houses and rides when we got back, but mostly he spent his time doing crafts.

The tiny pachycephalosaurus had a huge line for some reason, which was of couse, the one he most wanted to ride. T-Rex, which had had a huge line earlier that day had no line at all, and neither did parasauralophus.

He drove the jeeps then finally got to go back for the pachycephalosaurus.

Oscar took Allison into the gift shop and couldn't resist getting her a dinosaur backpack for whenever she starts preschool.

Allison loved getting cuddles from the baby T-Rex! There weren't nearly as many kids as there'd been earlier, so she got a lot more one on one time to pet the dinosaur babies.

Tyler did a few more rides

Then he excavated some fossils while Allison finished up her last rides.

That night we had an excellent dinner and games with our friends, then had a great sleep before we headed home the next day. We drove up to Yakima where we randomly ran into some friends from our old ward, then we grabbed lunch and fry sauce from the only Arctic Circle in Washington state. On our drive back we enjoyed the pretty frosted tips on the mountains of Snoqualmie Pass. Freshly fallen snow always looks so pretty in Washington.