Don't Be a Square, Go To Heritage Square!

I am a member of a lovely MOPS group here in Littleton. Last March, they organized a trip to Heritage Square. You could sign up for a seat to see Pinocchio in their music hall. So I signed us ALL up. Anthony was lucky enough to play hookey from work and off we went. It turned out to be tons of fun.

First, we took pictures outside the play:

I never did zoom out enough to get the whole sign board. But who cares? You can see the part that matters anyway. And little Jack just stood there waiting for me to focus the camera and everything. Just kidding.

The play itself was pretty good. Lots of audience involvement. The kids loved it. Tessa was enchanted. Jack was hungry and then grew tired of trying to squeeze the fun out of chewing on my car keys--so we had to leave before it was over. We went to a souvenir shop and looked around. I swear, they had the same exact stuff that was being sold when I was a kid. Like the gold flakes in a bottle of water or the beaded jewelry. There were Colorado mini license plate key chains with your name on them, t-shirts that said things like "BYOX: Bring Your Own Oxygen" (which I totally would have fallen for had I been on a trip to Colorado from another state. Heck, I might just go back and get it.), and polished rocks, etc. The list goes on and on. I think I even spotted a metal recorder like the one I bought in Estes Park when I was 14 with pretty much ALL of my spending money. Only to never play it.

After the play, we let Tessa get her face painted. Now this little girl does not like strangers to touch her--ever. But when you explain to her that the result will be the Little Mermaid on her FACE....Well, I think the outcome is obvious:

She was more than a little proud of her cheek that day.

So after the face painting, we bought Tessa an armband for unlimited rides. Of course, she was not going to let the woman selling them put it on her arm. She just started convulsing all over the place. When the ingenious little lady offered to put it on her ankle instead, Tessa was so surprised she actually quit moving for a moment. This meant that for the rest of the day, we had to tell the ride operators that the band was on her ankle. And she would stretch her leg out and point her toe daintily to show them. *eye roll*

I was more than a little shocked that she rode as many rides as she did by herself. She didn't even scream with her arms outstretched while the ride was moving like some of the other kids. Except for that one time that I mentioned we would go eat lunch after her ride. She must have thought I was leaving her to go eat with Anthony and Jack while she had to sit in the hot sun on a ride because she flipped out and threw her head back and wailed, "Luuuuuuuuuunch!". I had to remove her from the ride and we did the walk of shame back to the line.


Here she is on the banana ride. This ride allowed the passenger to control the banana by lifting a lever to make it go up or back down. Anthony said I reminded him of the parents he used to see when he worked at Jungle Jim's Playland shouting, "Push UP, honey!!!" to their kids from the sidelines of rides. Well, fine. I slipped right into that cliche like a warm bath, I did. And it didn't help either. Tessa would only let go for a split second to push up on the lever before releasing it to grab onto the handles again. This just caused the banana to "bounce" which startled her some and made her hold on even tighter.

I rode the ferris wheel with her. This was the fastest moving ferris wheel I had ever been on. Which made it very...ummmm...thrilling. Tessa loved the view and tried to point out something new every time we hit the top (which was like every 6 seconds). She would also lift her arms up in the air on our way down. I don;t know where she learned that one, but she seemed to enjoy it. I, on the other hand, kept a death grip on her t-shirt.

Here was the balloon ride. Not only did she ride it by herself, but she didn't hold on with both hands.

She also rode some paddle boats with Anthony.

Me and Jack stayed behind because they wouldn't let babies on the boats. He was pretty happy at first.

And then he got a little bit cranky:

Well, that's it for now. I would change the songs, but I am honestly enjoying them too much!