Fighting Boredom

Some days, it’s just too hot to move. Unless you’re three years old, going on four. While Lisa and I were struggling to stay out of the heat on Saturday, Ellie was bored out of her mind. So I went browsing on GoCityKids.com for something fun (and free) to do. Thankfully, I found out that there was a model railroad demo down in Alexandria, and we know how Ellie loves trains. Off we went, leaving Mom and Evan at home to take a much needed nap. They ended up sleeping the whole 2 and a half hours we were gone.
Ellie had a lot of fun with the trains, even if the “engineers” never deigned to give her a turn at driving (the older boys seemed to be the lucky ones). Eventually though, she was bored again, probably due to the fact that model train engineers are constantly fiddling with their gear. So off we went out in the heat in search of food and refreshment. Shockingly, we found a Starbucks nearby, and I was able to use the Starbucks gift card to pay, since we were low on cash. All in all, not a bad way to kill a few hours on a hot day.
On Sunday, we were determined not to allow Ellie to get bored, so we went to the 4-H Fair first thing in the morning. We arrived an hour after it opened, and they were already directing us to the secondary parking! It was a busy place, but thankfully since we were there early, we avoided the bad heat. ELlie got to see lots of animals, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, a peacock, horses, cows, and even dogs doing agility races. She collected all the stamps from the stations strewn about the fair, and got a 4-H temporary tattoo as a prize, though with her, temporary usually means two weeks. We filled the rest of the day with lunch at a restaurant, and grocery shopping, and somehow survived toddler boredom. Today may be rough though, as it looks like it will be raining much of the time. But Lisa is taking the kids to get their pictures taken, Ellie for her birthday pictures, and Evan just because. Thankfully, all the stamps that Ellie had all over her arms yesterday came off pretty easily in the bath.