play dates

J had a few play dates with friends last week, last Friday we went to Prospect Park with her friend F and her mommy C. There were waaay too many camp kids there. Older kids who basically ran around with no regard to the younger kids trying to play, spraying each other with water guns and throwing buckets of water on each other.... it was too much chaos so we left after abt. 15 minutes and walked around the park. We ended up walking to the Audubon center through a nice scenic way, we saw waterfalls that were there in the 1860's when the park was first built, and various other things along the way. At the house the kids played with some animal puppets, saw a Madagascar hissing cockroach, crayfish and a snapping turtle in the water. They had a nice time, especially J and F... it was nice to see them together playing horsey, and chasing each other and just being little girls. After about 1 hour we left to walk back to the other end of the park so we could go to the book store. On the way we saw swans and the girls of course had to stop and look and try to pet them and watched other ppl. feed them bread..
At the book store F and J got to pick out 2 free books with their read 8 books get a free book program they have each summer.

Saturday we met my friend K and her dd E who are friends from dance class, at the Hall of Science and spent the 3 hours exploring the place. F stuck mostly with his father and had a good time. They tried making giant bubbles, made water, sugar and pee using molecule models, saw a short movie about the evolution of the Kiwi bird, which fascinated J. Tried out surfing and pitching a baseball, saw exhibits about the whole universe, got to feel the difference in temperatures on mars vs. The Earth...
basically had a really good time together.
We then ate lunch, and drove the 2 blocks to the zoo to check out their discovery center which is only open on the weekends. The kids wanted cotton candy so we bought them some, a once a year occurrence :). At the zoo we found out that the discovery center was closed to visitors because of a b day party.... arrghhh... so we saw a few animals, the kids played on the playground equipment for little bit and then we drove home. It was so hot.....