Mayfield Dairy Field Trip???

Anyone up for a fieldtrip to the Dairy farm? I thought it would be something fun for us to do before preschool starts. If anyone is interested, we'd love to have company!

Thrasher Park - Norcross, GA

The Nanny also told us about a fun park in Norcross that has recently been re-done and is now state of the art. It's Thrasher Park and is located in downtown Norcross. The City's website doesn't have anything written about it, but I've posted a link to wikimapia which will at least give you an address. We're going to check it out one day this week.

We went to the park today and had a GREAT time. It is on the outskirts of downtown Norcross which is very quaint and downtown Decatur like. The parking lot borders a train track and all play stops when the train blows its whistle. The entire park is brand new and the play equipment has stuff for all ages, including a spiderman web climb. It was only 10 miles from our house and worth the trip!

Thrasher Park

Center for Puppetry Arts

Anyone ever been to the Center or know anything about their shows? I'm considering splurging on some tickets for the boys, but would like your opinions before I do it.

Trains, Trucks and Tractors

Trains, Trucks and Tractors. Southeastern Railway Museum. Explore visiting trucks and tractors, take a train ride, make crafts in the Kids’ Corner and more.

Aug. 1-2. Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun., noon-5 p.m.
3595 Buford Hwy., Duluth. 770-476-2013.
Many activities free with admission: Adults, $8; children 2-12, $4; children under 2, free.

Southeastern Railway Museum

Decatur Book Festival

Decatur Book Festival. Decatur Square.

We've never been to this before, but from the info on their website, it looks like a great place for the entire family to spend the day. Browse books, meet and greet more than 150 authors, listen to live music, play in the interactive children’s area, watch parades and cooking demonstrations, and more.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND - Sept. 4-6.

Decatur Book Festival

Home Depot Workshops

The first Saturday of each month, Home Depot offers a free kids workshop where kids can come for some hand-on fun. The workshop is open from 9-Noon at all Home Depot stores. So, not only will you get to take home the completed project you'll also get an orange apron (well your child will anyway).

Home Depot Workshop

Tubing in Helen GA

The boys and I went to the park the other day and started visiting with a Nanny. She was full of information about fun places to visit (wouldn't it be nice to be rich enough to have a nanny)! Anyway, she said they had just gone tubing in Helen, GA and then played at the water park afterward. I looked it up and it is pretty cheap ($3) to tube and only $15 to tube and play at the water park. Rich is going with the youth from our ward this weekend, so I'll let you know what he thinks next week.

In the meantime, here's the link if you want to take a look.

http://www.helentubing.com/

Wild Animal Safari

I've seen a few advertisements for this place lately and thought it looked interesting enough to post. It is located in Pine Mountain, GA, approx 1.5 hours from Atlanta. The entry fee is a little steep, but according to most of the comments well worth it. The website claims they have twice as many animals as the Atlanta Zoo.

If any of you have been or know more, please post away.

Wild Animal Safari

Stone Mountain Park

I know most of you are VERY familiar with Stone Mountain Park, but for those of you who aren't I think it's worth a look! We have a pass to the park as well as all of the attractions and our boys love to spend the day at the park. If you don't have an attraction pass, there are still plenty of things to do (you'll have to pay a parking fee to get in the park which I think is $10).

You can hike up to the top of Stone Mountain, play at the playground, picnic on the lawn, watch the laser show, walk around the village, fish...

You can also buy single event passes or a daily pass at a reduced rate at Kroger.

Free Fishing Derby

Youth Fishing Derby.
Brookside Office Park Lake.

Test your fishing skills in this youth event. Bring fishing gear and bait.

Ages 4-12.

July 25. 8-11 a.m.
3625 Brookside Pkwy., Alpharetta. 678-297-6140.
Pre-register.

Free Bowling

Stephanie posted this when I first started the blog, but now that it is getting warmer outside I thought it might be more interesting.

The alley participating is in Decatur. All you pay for is the shoes. You can find all the details by clicking on this link.

Kids Bowl Free

Centennial Olympic Park

The Fourth Saturday of each month, the Park hosts an afternoon of free family activities. This Saturday's theme is It's About Sports. The festivities start at Noon and last until 4 PM. So, if you are brave enough to play in the heat this may interest you!

For more details as well as the 2009 schedule use this link:

http://www.centennialpark.com/events/fsffd.html

Mayfield Dairy Farm

Mayfield has a farm in Braselton, GA, which is about 45 minutes from Atlanta. They offer a behind the scenes tour of the dairy plant and of course ice cream from their old fashioned ice cream parlor.

Little Shop of Stories

We went to an event tonight at the Little Shop of Stories on the square in Decatur and it was really fun. I had never heard of the Pete the Cat book, but the author and illustrator were there. The author also creates children's music and teaches music lessons at the store. They sang songs about the book as the illustrator drew pictures that went along with the songs. It was fun and their website has a list of future events. You can see them here.

Soccer

This will be our first year in organized sports and I've heard wonderful things about TYSA. Online registration is open now or you can register in person the first few Saturdays in August. All the details are online and it looks like the games for the beginners are on Saturdays only.

http://www.tysa.com/

Tucker Rec Center

For those of you who live in DeKalb County (if you live outside the county, you have to pay a higher tuition), the Tucker Rec Center offers great cheap classes for kids. Kai took a tumbling class last year and really liked it. He went twice a week and I believe it cost around $50. I don't have a schedule to post (they don't have anything online), but here is the contact info:

Tucker Recreation Center
4898 LaVista Rd, Tucker 30084
Phone: 770-270-6226

Hours:

Mon - Fri 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. Sat 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Attention all you posters...

In an effort to keep this blog user friendly (and in anticipation of all of you posting marvelous discoveries) please use labels for your posts. Specifically, if it is date sensitive please use the date as one of the labels (ie. Summer 2009 or July 2009). I hope this will make it easier to navigate through all the posts.

I'm not too versed in blogging so if any of you know of a better way, please post away! Also, can any of you tell me how to make the link clickable? How do I make the web address I'm copying and pasting linkable? Does that make any sense?

Thanks!

Dora the Explorer at the Fox

Dora is coming to Atlanta August 21-23. The tickets are reasonably priced, and you can get a discount through Nordstroms. When you buy tickets online, enter the promo code TOYS in the Nordstroms box. We bought tickets for the Saturday 2 p.m. show if anyone wants to carpool with us.

http://www.foxtheatre.org/cgi-bin/calendar/calendar.cgi?d=22&m=08&y=2009

Need a Babysitter?

Call Bethany Weiler, L'Anita's little sister. She's getting ready to head out to BYU in August, and wants to fill out her hours at work.
home phone 770-717-7568
email weilerwailer@gmail.com
She can drive, but doesn't have her own car. She lives next to the Lilburn Building and Parkview HS.

Free Swimming?

So, my neighbor said that Piedmont Park's swimming pool had free swimming hours from 10-11:30am. I can't find any mention of it on their webpage, which is too bad because they just finished a lovely multi-million dollar renovation. While searching, I did find a link that said that the Grant Park Pool has free swimming hours each afternoon, and that certain area hotels will open their pools to the public on certain days, but I'm not finding a lot of details. Apparently my free sniffer is a little out of practice.
Can anyone help with the details? Anyone want to try it out? The Grant Park Pool is a hike, but the Piedmont Pool would be lovely.

Coupon Clippers

A few months ago, Stephanie sent me a link to a website devoted entirely to saving money. It's become one of my favorites and has helped cut our grocery bill down with minimal effort. If any of you are interested, here's the address. For those of you who are first timers to coupon clipping or a bit overwhelmed, don't worry she explains everything on the website.

www.southernsavers.com

Free Chocolate Anyone?

Apparently, some of the candy making companies are swapping ingredients in their chocolate recipes to help keep their costs down. Mars, however, plans to stick with the real thing. To prove their resolve, Mars started a Real Chocolate Relief Act promotion in May. What does that mean for you? The free chocolate giveaway will continue every Friday through September 25, 2009, Mars is giving away 250,000 certificates for free Mars chocolate products. The certificates become available on Friday morning at 9:00 a.m., and they’re available until they’re gone, so you’ll need to act fast. There’s a limit of one coupon per email address per Friday & four coupons per household during the offer period. Must be a resident of the U.S. & age 13 or older to get a certificate.

AMC Summer Movie Camp

The AMC Summer Movie Camp offers movies for $1 every Wednesday at 10 a.m. The shows will run until August 5, and all proceeds go to Variety: The Children’s Charity and the Will Rogers Institute. Snacks are discounted as well during the movie series. A KidsPack that is usually $5.75 is $3 during the Movie Camp.

This month’s schedule is below:

• July 1: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

• July 8: Tale of Despereaux

• July 15: Horton Hears a Who

• July 22: The Spiderwick Chronicles

• July 29: Nim’s Island

For theatre locations go to: http://www.amctheatres.com/smc/index.html

Zoo Atlanta

I know most of you have a zoo pass, but for those of you who don't this may be just the enticement you need to head to the zoo.

Arrive at Zoo Atlanta before 11 a.m. any day of the week and receive $5 off admission, through July 26, with the “Beat the Heat” deal.

www.zooatlanta.org