Dinosaur Alive Exhibit at Worlds of Fun Kansas City

Last Memorial Day Weekend, my nephews and nieces were in town for vacation. One of the places we’ve visited was Worlds of Fun. It is an amusement park located at Kansas City with different attractions and rides for all ages from gigantic roller coasters to kiddie rides. The recent attraction they have that caught my daughters’ attention was Dinosaur Alive Exhibit.

Dinosaur Alive Exhibit at Worlds of Fun

Dinosaur Alive is an interactive and fun learning experience that you don’t want to miss. Entrance fee at the exhibit costs $5 per person, this is not included in the park admission ticket. The dinosaur exhibit is held in an outdoor setting, which is really spectacular and look realistic. It will take around 30 minutes to walk through the exhibit to see all the dinosaurs. 

Dinosaur Alive Exhibit at Worlds of Fun Kansas City

1. Face to Face encounter
Along the path, you will experience a face to face encounter with a life-sized moving and roaring dinosaurs. You can actually see them breathing.

2. Control dinosaurs movement
Several dinosaurs were equipped with interactive consoles that allows you to control dinosaur movement. Dinosaur body part will move as you press the corresponding button from the console.

3. Dig site with fossils
Inside the exhibit, you’ll also have the opportunity to experience dig site with fossils for kids. There’s available shovel that you can use.

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Salt Dough Personalized Foot and Hand Prints

If you’re looking for a father’s day gift idea, you might want to try DIY personalized foot and hand prints. This is amazing project you would love to do with your little ones. Time is passing by so fast and they get bigger each day and having this personalized foot prints hanging on your wall would be a great project you would love to keep for a long time.

This was not my original idea, I’ve seen this circulating on internet and gave a try with a little changes on the materials mixture ratio. I made foot prints when my daughter was few months old and hand prints when she was almost 2. The result was great.  Both were father’s day gift.

Salt Dough Foot Prints Plaque

 

Materials you will need:

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup salt
• 6 tbsp water
• Acrylic paint
• Sponge Brush

Salt Dough Personalized Foot and Hand Prints-How to:

1.    Mix flour, salt and water.
2.    Knead until all are mixed and form a ball of dough. Add more water if needed.
3.    Place the dough ball in a shallow bowl or any shape mold you want to use.
4.    Flatten it according to your desired thickness.
5.    Transfer it to the baking pan. It’s recommended to have baking sheet so it would be easier to remove once it’s dried.
6.    Gently pressed down your babies’ feet and hands to leave prints. If you want to hang yours, add holes before baking.
7.    Bake for 4 hours at 150F. It might be longer depending on your dough thickness. Check after 3 hours, if still moist continue baking for another hour.
8.    Let it cool and paint the color you want.

Salt Dough Personalized Foot and Hand Prints

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DIY Chalkboard from an Old TV Tray

We have old TV tray the sits in the garage and just collecting dust. Since I don’t want it to throw away, I re-purposed the TV tray into chalkboard. It was a cheap easy project you can do if you have old boards in your home. It does not require expertise to make this one.

Recycled TV Tray into chalkboard

Materials:

• Chalkboard Spray Paint
• Trim Spray Paint
• Old TV tray
• Old Containers (for chalk)
• Painters tape
• Paper
• Drill
• Screws
• Sand paper

All materials I used are available on our storage. These are left over from other projects except the Chalkboard spray paint which I bought from Walmart.

Recycling TV tray into chalkboard – How to:

1.    Since the TV tray is smooth and glossy, I had to sand it first to give a rough finish.
2.    Drill holes on the tray and attach it to the stand using screws.
3.    Spray the tray with chalkboard paint and let dry overnight. I used Krylon Chalkboard which cost around $4-$5 from leading retailers. (I still have left over I can use for my next project.)
4.    Once dried, cover the tray with paper and apply painters tape to expose only the trim and stand.
5.    Spray paint the trims and stand with orange Rust-oleum and then let dry.
6.    Remove painters tape and then attach the chalk container and you’re done.

This Chalkboard project is a great idea that kids would love to play with. This is a good tool in expressing their creative minds. My two-year old daughter was so excited to use the chalkboard, she couldn't wait much and she started writing on it as soon as I finished. My daughter likes to draw. She's enjoying the chalkboard and writes on it when she can.

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Ladybug Garden Decoration

Every morning before I start working I always look at my garden from the window or sometimes I walk outside and view my flowers closely.  This has been my routine since we set up our backyard garden. One morning I saw a ladybug nesting on one of my plants and thought it would be nice to have a ladybug decoration. So on my next day off from work, I decided to create a ladybug out of the materials we have at home.

DIY Ladybug Garden Decoration

Ladybug Garden Decoration DIY

Materials needed:

• Egg shells or any rounded mold you have
• Acrylic paint and brush
• Plaster of Paris and water
• Mixing container and stick

First mixed Plaster of Paris with water. Follow the ratio as per label mixing instructions. I used 2 parts of Plaster of Paris to 1 part of water.

Fill the egg shells with Plaster of Paris mixture. Gently tap it to removed bubbles. Let it dry completely as per drying Plaster of Paris drying instructions.

Slowly remove the egg shells by breaking them and gently peel off little by little. Do it just the way you peel hard boiled eggs.

Apply red acrylic paint and let it dry. You can apply a second coat depending on the quality of your paint.

Paint the ladybug head with black paint, draw a line from top of the head to center top of the back and then add the black spots. Also add the white spots at the head area, this will look like ladybug eyes. Let the paint dry completely before putting it on your garden.

I put mine in a pot and these ladybugs add charm to my flower pot. This DIY ladybug decoration would also be nice addition to my princess mini-garden. I also posted mushroom garden decoration which you can check here.

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Mushroom Garden Decoration-Recycled Easter Eggs

We went to egg hunting event last Easter Sunday and my daughter brought home a lot of plastic eggs she collected. I wanted to recycle those Easter eggs into a garden art. This project is so easy and will only need few materials that you probably already have.

Here are the plastic Easter eggs that turned into a mushroom decoration:

To create that you will need the following materials:

• Plastic Easter eggs
• White Paint (or any color you want)
• Coat Sealant
• Paint brush
• Glue gun
• Tree twigs

Recycling Easter Eggs into Mushroom Garden Decoration

To start with, cut the tree twigs, about 4 inches long which will serve as the mushroom stem.

Then, use glue gun to attach the twigs into the eggs. Now we have a mushroom cap and stem attached together.

Paint the plastic egg with white spots or you can use color of your own choice and then let it dry.  Once dried cover it with coat sealant.

Put it on the garden to have added accent. These mushrooms look beautiful on our potted plant.

Placing it in a very hot location is not a good idea as it will soften the glue so the best place is to put it in a shaded garden.

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Kansas City Zoo Family Adventure

We recently heard about Zoo Spring special so we decided to go to Kansas City Zoo and give our princess the experience of seeing the live animals she had only seen in her books. We already took her at the Zoo but she was too young and did not have remember any those visits.

Kansas City Zoo is a great place to visit for learning or for family outing.  The Zoo opens at 9:30am and closes at 4pm on weekdays and 9:30am-5pm on weekends. Please check there site for updated details. General admission ticket costs $14.50, since we received a coupon, it didn’t cost us to get in. They are sending coupon passes for Jackson Country residents every year. No need to have a coupon for parking, it’s free.

The Kansas City Zoo has three main area, the Australia, the Kid Zone and the Africa. We stopped by at the booth near the entrance to rent a stroller for our princess. They have single, double or even a buggy that you can rent from. If you have a toddler, it is advisable to rent stroller or bring you own as there’s a lot of walking to do to go to different animal exhibit.

 

 

There are transportation inside that you can avail to go to Zoo Continents. Zoo entrance is at the Kids Zone area and from there you can ride and go straight to Australia or Africa. Train and Tram Stations are located at the right side from the entrance, just look for the sign. This is extra cost and not included with the entrance ticket. Train ride is available going to Australia and tram ride going to Africa.  There’s also a Sky Safari ride available at the Africa.

Kansas City Zoo Favorite Animal Exhibit

Among all the animals we saw, I will only highlight the animals we are most interested with in an area. We follow the trail and headed to Polar Bear Exhibit.

Polar Bear Passage is located near the entrance so we headed there. Unfortunately the polar bear did not show up. Depending on the season, some animals are not available for viewing. Last time we went, the bear was swimming back and forth and entertaining the visitors by doing somersault under the water.

Animals in Australia
After the Polar Bear, we headed to the left side of the Zoo which is going to Australia. We prefer to walk and follow the trail.

In the Australia Area, the most engaging animals we saw were Kangaroos, Sheep and Camels. They have several Kangaroo species available for viewing. Among them are Tree Kangaroo and Wallaby Kangaroo. Look for the identification labels posted to identify them. The sheep area actually got our princess interest since she’s able to feed them. There’s available food dispenser and next to it is sanitizing liquid. For a quarter, you can get food and feed the sheep.

Animals in Kids Zone
After seeing the camels, we went back to Kids Zone. There’s a playground area which caught our daughters attention so we stopped by for a bit and play.

We went inside the discovery barn and see the turtles, frogs and macaw and other small animals.  The frogs are about the size of my index finger. Inside the barn is a big slide where you can slide down. Also there a giant old tree outside with installed slide that kids can play while you’re taking a rest from walking.

 

Penguin Plaza is great and well maintain place. Penguins are so adorable. Diving in the water and swim fast right in front of my princess was so entertaining.

There are 3 Sea Lion Shows schedule 1030 130 and 330. Good thing it is near the Tuxedo Grill so grabbed our food first and seated outside facing the sea lion area. By the time show starts, we are almost done eating.

Animals in Africa
From Kids Zone we headed to Africa and preferred to walk still. The first animal exhibit we visited was the Elephants. The enclosure area for the elephants is big but elephants were standing only few meters away from the fence.

To see the other animals in Africa, you need to cross the bridge and have an option either to walk or ride the sky safari. Only few animal to see over safari ride so we decided to walk instead. Also to give our princess a chance to have a closer view of animals. There’s also a boat ride available but we did not avail it either since we want a closer view.

Among the animals that got our daughters attention were Zebra, Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros and gorillas. We did not see Giraffe during our visit.

To see the gorillas we had to cross a hanging bridge which was a fun experience since you can feel it was shaking while we were walking.

If you had enough walking, you can ride a tram from Africa going back to the Kids Zone which is near the exit.

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I-70 Drive In Kansas City

We decided to see movie at I-70 Drive In on our day off. I-70 Drive In is an outdoor theater consisting 4 different big screens. Screens are located inside a large enclosed parking area build with own entrances. Movie viewers can take their car in and see movies at their own comfort.  Each screen features 2 digitally projected movies and plays one after another. Showing normally movie starts after the sun set.

Entrance fee for adult is $10 while kids 11 year old and under are free. We like to go in Drive In since it’s cheaper than going to indoor theater plus we can take our little girl with us. $10 for 2 movies is a good deal, you can’t complain about that. When you buy your ticket from the gate they will give you the direction going to your movie screen. Also they will give the radio station where you can listen. Please pay attention to that radio frequency as you might need it. Speaker systems installed at the theater are loud enough but if you want louder, you can tune in your stereo and find the radio frequency given at the booth. All movie screens have their own entrances. Where ever you parked in the I70 drive in, there’s a chance you can see all 4 screens but you can’t hear all of its sounds.

During the spring movie starts at 8pm but it gets later on summer. Please check I70 Drive In website for updated movie time. We went there early so we can get a good spot since we are driving a little car. We normally park behind a little car so there’s no chance that big trucks can block us. Well, it happens and that’s the disadvantage of going to an outdoor theater, no seat plan, no elevation, park where you can have the best view and watch at your own comfort. Those who have trucks are fortunate. If it fits, they can even bring bed or furniture with them and enjoy the movie like they are in home theater.

To maximize our experience, we parked next to the speaker behind a little car where there is enough room outside. We laid down our blanket near the speaker and had picnic before the movie starts. We thought about staying in the blanket but wind picked up and it’s getting cold so we had to get inside the car.

When the first movie is over, there’s about 10 minutes break, long enough to go to the bathroom or buy foods at the concession if you get hungry. They sell pop corns and sodas and other stuff too similar to the indoor theater. Concession closes before the 2nd movie ends but the operator gives notice so do what you need to do or buy you need before it closes.

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