OKC - Bricktown

Much of the extended family left Sunday morning, so we had time for brunch with Poppy Sunday morning and Bricktown with Nana, Popsie, Kelly, Dan, and Cooper that afternoon.  We found a greenhouse with exotic tropical plants and a fun playground for the kids:

Sour faces after eating Uncle Dan's warheads:

OKC Golden Corral

We spent a lot of time at the Golden Corral in Oklahoma City!  That was where Poppy wanted to have his 90th birthday party, and where we had lunch with him the next day as well.   I think we counted over 70 people in attendance at his birthday party (not including the Golden Corral employees, who definitely count as his friends!); something like all but 3 of his relatives were in attendance!

Tony's piece of the family celebration:

Bouncy ball test facility.  Poppy wanted to make sure they all worked :)

In the news

 Another appearance in the local paper!  This time, Rudy was showing off one of the new laptops the PTA purchased for the school.  The other kids are from Brady's classroom.

LegoFest

The LegoFest has been the talk of the town lately and our kids were thrilled to be a part of it.  Our session was from 3:00 to 7:30, but none of us actually expected to be there the whole time.  We were, and the kids would have been happy to spend even more time there!

Brady's favorite activity was the Lego buildings.  We got to build our own creations and then tell the Lego people where we wanted our buildings on the United States.  It's funny that this one small tweak made it such a novel experience.

Brady's two creations.  You can see them on the "map" in approximately Ohio and Oklahoma:

Rudy built a boat and a lake for the Florida peninsula:

They each had a turn driving the Technic R/C trucks:

Rudy's favorite stop was the car building and racing.  (This was also a favorite activity at LegoLand.)

MY favorite activity was the Hero Factory.  The boys have a few of these guys but don't play with them much, but this was unique because there was such a variety of parts you could use to build your hero.

Brady teamed up with some other kids in a building competition.  Their tower was the tallest, but it didn't survive its transport to the competition table.

Rudy's project for the art wall:

James and I brought a little Tribe Pride to the art mural:.

Glass blowing

The other part of our no-school-day adventure was to visit a glass-blowing shop in a nearby town.  The boys each got a chance to "blow" their own ornament.  (I'm glad I had a significant discount on it, because there really wasn't much that they could do!)  I think it was cool for them to get some idea of what Papa does in his hot shop though.