Last Week of Summer Vacation

So, it's the last week of summer vacation for Julia.  It's hard to believe that school starts back up one week from tomorrow.

I think Julia is more than ready.

Rosemary Pool is closed.

The playroom at the YMCA is closed all week for cleaning.

The weather is cloudy with showers in the forecast.

Now, while Julia is no stranger to coming up with ways to entertain herself (like her fashion show she decided to put on yesterday morning while the rest of the household was sleeping:),

she is sort of at a loss as to how to pass her time now that swimming is done.  The girls were fighting all morning over reeeeeally stupid things.  Like whether the title of Julia's new book is "Magic Bunny: Vacation Dream" or "Magic Bunny: Nation Dream."  (For the record, it is the former, but the fact that Julia couldn't just let Madeleine get away with calling it "Nation Dream" had me at the end of my rope.)

So I decided it was time to take an adventure to some place we'd never been.  After doing some research online, I opted for a trip to Woburn, which is a good 30+ minutes from where we live, to try out an indoor play place called The Klubhouse.

Let me tell you, it was SO worth it.

Despite the fact that Julia had issues with the spelling of the place,
(JULIA: Mommy?  I always thought you should spell "Clubhouse" with a "C." 
ME: Well, that's how it's really spelled.  This is spelled with a "K" on purpose.
JULIA: (annoyed) Mommy, I just don't get WHY anyone would decide to spell a word WRONG on PURPOSE.  Like, WHY do they DO that?
ME: Uh....I really have no idea.)

she had no complaints about the contents of the place.  The girls had a field day in there, starting off in the bouncy house:

(Madeleine spent a good deal of time bouncing around while simultaneously grabbing onto her bum, as she is wont to do lately.  It literally has nothing to do with whether or not she needs to go potty.  I'm sure the lifeguards at Rosemary Pool couldn't help but be a little freaked while she hopped around in the water, clutching her bum cheeks, chattering away at them while they were on duty.)

Next up was the big wooden pirate ship:

Ahoy, mateys!

Madeleine, below deck

Madeleine manning the steering wheel

Julia keeping lookout aboard the ship

Madeleine peeking through a porthole

I will point out that I spent most of my time below deck in this pirate ship, since we were playing "Olden Days," and I was Julia's pet crocodile.  Because that makes lots of sense, right?

One of the quickest ways to get below deck was to slide down the fireman's pole, although both girls were completely freaked about it at first for some reason.  After a few attempts in which I held onto their bodies as they slid down, they finally built up the courage to try it themselves, and by the end of the visit, they were pole-masters! (yeah, that sounds kind of inappropriate):

Madeleine sliding down all by herself

There was also a big wooden castle, aka "Hogwart's."  It seemed to be decided by silent understanding that the castle was really the famous School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

For instance:

MADELEINE: (climbing out from the pirate ship) Julia, wanna go to Hogwart's now?
JULIA: Okay!  (both girls dashing off towards the castle)

Julia Hermione at Hogwart's

Then, as if the above mentioned structures weren't enough, there were also play items like these weird things that the kids decided to swing on:

as well as things like this talking, mechanical dinosaur to perch atop:

If I had predicted how HUGE a hit this place was going to be, I would have taken the kids earlier in the day.  I brought them around 1:30, knowing the place closes at 3pm, so we could get a good hour and a half in.  Turns out they would have liked a lot more time than that.  Both kids were really bummed to find out we had to leave, especially Madeleine, who has no real concept or understanding of time yet.

ME: Okay, Madeleine, we have to leave in five minutes, so pick one last thing to do and then we'll go!
MADELEINE: But Mama. WHYYYYY do we have to go?
ME: Because this place closes in five minutes, honey.
MADELEINE: (lamenting) But Maaamaaa!  When is this place gonna NOT be CLOSED again?

So I have promised them both that, some other day when the Klubhouse is gonna not be closed again, we'll take another trip out to Woburn.

Afternoon #1 of no-pool, no-YMCA = success.  Now to see how the rest of the week goes!...