Big Field Trip

The kiddos and I left the house yesterday morning at 8:00am, drove 150 miles in three states on 3 major interstates and four highways to visit the Crayola Factory. We had SO much fun - both in the car and at the actual Crayola Factory. They took a few toys, their bibles, and no DVD player (their choice), and we had a blast. We talked and they played and practiced their memory verses for Sunday.

At the Crayola Factory, we arrived just in time to see the show about how crayons are made...very cool. We got to put the label on a red crayon...the glue is just cornstarch and water. Did you know that they used to pay farmer's families to wrap crayons all winter long? They could wrap about 4 a minute and sometimes did it as long as 9 hours a day....the whole family helped to earn extra money....I think he said 9 cents an hour per person.

Then we watched the marker machine make orange markers and everybody got one of those too. We got a little box of crayons, a marker, and some Model Magic clay and then just visited all of the hands on stuff....colored (imagine that!), stamped a huge "Happy Birthday Crayola" banner, wrote on glass walls with markers, and just had lots of fun!

Then we visited the Natioanl Canal Museum on the 3rd and 4th floors of the building. It explained locks and how canals worked...how mules were used to pull boats through canals....and how it was often a family that worked together to take care of the locks. It was a really neat museum...unfortunately, we couldn't take a canal boat ride because the mule was out of commission due to hernia surgery!

Now, don't you wish their were pictures! Well, I'm sure that I am the worst mom ever about this, but I decided to leave the camera in the car and just enjoy the day with my kiddos. So I colored with them, did crafts with them, and played on all of the museum stuff....oh, all while trying to stay away from a crazy couple from New Jersey who were trying to video every moment of the experience for their 3 year old son....gosh, what would he do without these priceless moments on video...especially the ones where his mom "fixed" his every craft for him? I don't know...maybe enjoy the time with mom and dad?:)

We spent our last 20 minutes or so at the Crayola Store where I gave the kids each $10 to spend.....maybe I'll take pictures later of them with their stuff and post those. All in all, it was a really great time and great practice for our upcoming 2600 mile trip!