Bugs, Barbers, Burgers, and Bears

Today for our date day, I took Joshua to the Lakeside Nature Center in Swope Park.  They were having a Bugs Extravaganza, which I thought Joshua would enjoy.  We first went by the scat display, which was appropriately located between the two bathrooms.  I asked Joshua what one of them was, and he excitedly said, "It's poop!".  If you have some free time today, and if you've always felt your life was lacking in raps about poop, I highly recommend you take advantage of the scat rap picture (click to enlarge to see the words) and make your day better by rapping that out loud.

They had a craft room where kids could make visors using sticky foam pieces of bugs and other critters.  Joshua really liked that, and then happily wore it the rest of the time, including at a table with stuffed bird toys that you could squeeze to hear their actual sound.

Joshua's never going to have arms like Collin Kaepernick if he doesn't get started early, so I stopped at the tattoo station so he could get a bug tattoo.  Okay, fine.  It was a temporary tattoo, and I don't aspire for him to have a sleeve of ink, but still.  Later he compared his wingspan to a bald eagle's.  Joshua's got a way to go on this one.

Aside from the bug exhibit, we were also able to see all the regular exhibits in the nature center, including a real bald eagle and an owl.  The bald eagle has always been my favorite bird and one of my favorite animals, so I was excited to see it as well.

There were snakes and spiders and even an opossum, but Joshua was really excited to see the big turtles more than anything else.  On the way out, he found one of his favorite things in all of nature: a big stick.  He carried it to the car while speaking softly.

Joshua was due for a haircut, so I stopped by Purple Label on the way home.  I normally take him to Great Clips, but Purple Label is kind of a special treat (it was also where he got his first haircut), so I wanted to do that today.  Meghan was hoping for a really short summer haircut, but it was so cute at an interim stage that I told Evan (the barber) that it was good enough.  On the way out Joshua stood by a suit of armor.

We were starving, so we stopped by McDonald's to get some food.  I wanted to get some ice cream and decided on Cold Stone Creamery, so we took the food to their patio to eat it.

We then went in to Cold Stone to get the ice cream.  Inside they had a giant stuffed bear on a bench.  I told Joshua to smile, and he did this!  What a crazy picture!  We took our ice cream outside and enjoyed it on the patio before heading home.  It was another fun date day.