Skateboarding, sunshine and searching for dinosaurs...

I've mentioned before that big boy really wants a skateboard. Ever since he watched Firehouse Dog the first time and he saw Shane (Josh Hutcherson) riding on one he has asked if he can have one when he's older. When we were staying at Coombe Mill he saw skateboards belonging to the bigger children and desperately wanted to have a go on them. I've always said he has to be at least 8 before we'd consider it, but I may reconsider this previous decision. 

On Saturday there was a skate demo in a local park where children were invited to try out skateboarding and to have a go at doing some tricks. The idea was to introduce them safely to the skills, but also to show them how to use the facilities in the park including ramps and jumps. 

Scooterboy

As our boy is more used to his scooter he tried that first then had a tutorial on the much longed for skateboard. He did really well and continues to amaze me with how incredibly brave and daring he is, trying new things without fear. I think he really looks the part doesn't he ? 

My little skateboarder

What a professional !

Then on Monday I took both boys to Crystal Palace park to see the dinosaur trail. Big boy has been to the park before, but he hasn't seen the dinosaurs so he was quite surprised to see so many of them lurking around the park. Little boy was less impressed, but he still enjoyed being outdoors on a sunny day with his brother. 

Dinosaurs in the water 

Dinosaurs hiding amongst the trees

As you will know from previous outdoor kids posts big boy is really into climbing trees right now so he made an attempt to climb onto this one, but it was too high up for him to reach.  He still enjoyed trying and I suspect it won't be long before he is tall enough to reach. 

Big boy - bigger tree

It's not only the boys who have been enjoying the sunshine this week - Neo has also been making the most of the weather and taken to sunbathing on the front doorstep most of the day. Here is a rare image of him awake and communing with nature.

Nature cat

This post is being shared with the fab #countrykids linky hosted by the lovely Fiona of Coombe Mill

  

Scootering with dinosaurs

We made two visits to Crystal Palace Park this weekend - one unscheduled one and the other planned for.

Hubbie took the boy on Saturday to an activity called Diddy Dinos that is a stay and play session at a children's centre right next to the park. They've been before and enjoyed it so much they decided to go back and spend some time exploring the park as well.

The dinosaurs are this big

There is a dinosaur theme to Crystal Palace Park with big sculptures of them dotted around the park which we spotted when me and Hubbie ran 10k there a few years back. I was already flagging by the time we saw them so his enthusiastic, 'look it's the dinosaurs !" was met with an ungrateful grunt from me as we still had the final - uphill - mile to complete. The dinosaurs date back to 1852 and they were the first dinosaur sculptures in the world. They also pre-dated Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species by 6 years !

The mystery of the bell

There are plenty of odd things in the park like this bell that has absolutely no explanation of what it is for or why it is there. It is nice to look at though. The park is - of course - also home to a sports ground that is well used and we did spot a lot of athletic looking types wandering round too.

They call him the wanderer 

Our boy loves open space so a park this big is just perfect as he can run around and we can see him from a long way off usually.

Safety first

Scooter buddies 

On Father's Day we went on an unplanned visit to the park again as we had some time to fill between brunch and swimming. The boy wanted to go to Diddy Dinos again and was not persuaded by either of us that it was not open on a Sunday, however we won him over by saying he could scooter round the park this time. He didn't need to be asked twice. On the way to the kids play area he made a friend on the path so the two scooter buddies went on ahead and we plotted heading off for a sneaky pub lunch with the other boy's parents while they kept each other company.

Spidey enjoying the play park 

"Run faster Daddy !"

No such luck though and Daddy was roped into doing some hard work spinning the roundabout and even had to carry the boy back to the car park while I carried his scooter as he'd tired himself out so much. I did have some flashbacks to bits of the route we ran as we followed our speedy scooter riding boy on his mobile adventures. It was strange seeing the park through my son's eyes instead of as the punishing ordeal it was for me on my previous visit.

The coda to this story is that we spent Sunday evening at A&E as the boy has an ear infection that we realised very late on was causing him a lot of pain. He's on the mend now, but we'd kept him so busy he barely realised he was poorly over the weekend.

This post is being shared as part of the lovely Coombe Mill linky #countrykids