Eccles Dinosaur Park

 On the 24th of July Ben was working, so I headed up to Eccles Dinosaur Park with my family.  'Cause nothing says Pioneers like the dinosaur park! (Uhhh....)  But really, it was fun.

 Sorry Nat, your eyes were closed in both pictures. I'm not sure what Sammi is doing here...

 This is kind of like the obligatory Hogle Zoo gorilla hand picture.

Being a dinosaur?

 Emerson couldn't understand why we were making him stick his head through that hole until he saw the pictures afterward, and then he really got a kick out of himself.

 They were both really nervous about the dinosaurs, especially the animatronic ones.

 Sammi's favorite dinosaur of the whole day...but she was still really nervous about it, so Grandpa had to hold her.

Digging for fossils.  E loved this part and kept imploring, "Come on Mom!  Come join the fun!"

The dinosaur park made a huge impression on Sammi because she says at least once a day, "I see beebee dinosaur!"  Her favorite is to tell strangers this valuable nugget of information and then they look at me quizzically and I find myself sheepishly trying to explain while at the same time telling myself that I don't need to explain because they don't really care.  I should just pass it off as gibberish, but she just speaks so dang clearly.  Just one of those "fun" mom moments.  (And I used quotations appropriately here because I mean it's not really fun.)  Another "fun" moment is when your son introduces himself to everyone in every new situation we've been in as Wall-E, in a very loud, nasally robot voice.  That's another one I find myself trying to explain.  It goes something like this.

Emerson: (In piercing nasally voice) "I'm WAAAAAALLLLLLL-EEEEEE"

Me: "He thinks he's Wall-E, you know the robot."

Chuckle from potential new friends/enemies depending on how harshly they are judging me.

Me: (feeling the need to further explain) "His name is Emerson, not really Wall-E, because it's not like I would name my kid Wally or anything..."

Emerson: "Do you wanna see me make a cube of garbage?"

.............

I also hope no one overhears me when I ask Wall-E if he would like more garbage to eat, because he will not allow me to break his character scenario by calling him "Emerson" or calling food "food".  Sometimes it's tough to keep up with his characters.  Some other favorites are Lifter Truck, Lucky the Puppy, The Cowboy, and Diesel Train or Steam Engine Train.