Two For One

As a mom, I have to say I love a good bargain....so when my dear friend Ann had her baby (whose name by the way will be Ann Elizabeth - what a sweet name!) shower in Austin this weekend, I jumped at the chance to bring the whole family and make a weekend out of it!

Especially when Billy discovered there was a fabulous dinosaur park in Bastrop!  www.thedinopark.com

FABULOUS place, I must say - for anyone who has little dino lovers like Will - this place is great, plus it is about one mile from quite possibly the most fabulous resort - Hyatt Lost Pines Resort.  

Next time we go to Austin, we are DEFINITELY staying here :)

http://lostpines.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp?null

Will had a great time - I don't think I have ever seen him so excited.  

He was literally running so fast through the trails he was almost falling over.  

It was very difficult to get him to settle down for pictures so you'll notice his expression is, um, a little distracted in each of the below pictures haha!

Will was convinced this was a Pachycephalosaurus, but the sign says it is a Stegoceras.   Never one to doubt the wicked knowledge of my own son, I Googled Stegoceras only to find that it is, in fact, of the Infraorder, Pachycephalosaurus!  

My son is a genius!

This is one of his favorites: Coelophysis...thanks to Aunt Stacy regifting some retro Jurassic Park toys from her own childhood - he has two of these in the man cave.

This picture was forced - he isn't too interested in the plant eaters, except when playing herbivores versus carnivores...and yes, he knows that T-Rex's rival was Triceratops while Allosaurus fought Stegosaurus...we may have a little nerd on our hands.

This is Iguanadon...another poor plant eater who was basically defenseless, aside from his giant thumb claws...

Yay!  My favorite - Stegosaurus!

Here is another one of his favorites (because it was one of the smallest dinosaurs) - Compsognathus

And of course, last but not least, T-Rex...

Very, very cool, and very, very big!

Next we were off to dig for fossils...we had tons of fun and found all sorts of fossils from skulls, to claws to teeth!

What a perfect weekend!  There were only two things I wasn't too thrilled about:

1)  Due to my poor planning (so unlike me!) we were unprepared in the food department and had to stop for fast food...this marks Will's FIRST fast food experience EVER.  I shiver at the thought!  Thankfully, he opted for the sliced apples and milk only :)  That's my boy!  Fast food is GROSS!

2)  And of course, we had to hit the gift shop at the dino park, which resulted in a slight temper tantrum after Will determined that buying one of his newest favorites, Acrocanthosaurus, just wasn't enough.

In an effort to get him in the car without the owners calling CPS on us, I finally gave up the fight, and bought him another dino.