Where Have We Been #5: Ecotarium Pumpkin Fest

Wow.  I'm going back to Mr. No's first Halloween with this one!  It's an event I suppose we should try again now that he's older. The Ecotarium's Annual Pumpkin Fest.  Is it obvious that we love pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns?  Mr. No was not even a year old and was the most adorable undead pirate!

Basically, it's another jack-o-lantern show with carved pumpkins along the paths.

But this one also had adorable animals made from the pumpkins.  We haven't been in years but there really weren't too many pumpkins to look at.  This may have changed.  

Mr. No was far too young for any of the other activities so we really didn't get too much out of the day.  It is definitely geared toward elementary school aged children.  The train was available to ride but, since it was so many years ago, I can't remember if we went on it or not.  He did love the bird mascot that was walking around.  He didn't want to leave him!

It's something that's on the list to check out again now that Mr. No is old enough to participate in more activities.  I just couldn't resist posting photos of this adorable little pirate!

If anyone has been recently, I would love to hear if it would be worth it to take a 6 year old next year.  We've also done the Polar Express event at the Ecotarium.  We froze out rears off on the train ride but Mr. No enjoyed it and he was old enough to play a bit in the museum.

Ecotarium

Thank you again for including ASTC membership with the children's museums membership!  We were able to go to the Ecotarium in Worcester, MA for free!  Love that pass!  It was a late start day yet again on Wednesday and we had promised Mr. No a museum trip.  We were looking for something close since I was going to the movies with my sister for the first time in who knows how long. H suggested checking out the Ecotarium to see if the free pass included that museum.  Once we found out that it did, we packed up and set off. We said hello to the eagles and owl on our way inside.  Mr. No really wanted to play inside first.

Right away Mr. No ran off to check everything out.  We had been there before (somehow never noticing the other outside path) but Mr. No did not have as much fun as he did this time.  We didn't even get to look at everything because he was so involved in playing.  I would definitely say it's a 3 1/2 year old and up kind of place.  He poked in all the boxes and played with the little tornadoes.

showing off his tornado

He was a little upset that they changed the preschool area.  He loved the little ship that was there and was sad that they had removed it.  The new play area wasn't as exciting to him, he actually found it a bit boring.  He did put on a very cute puppet show for us with Owl and Rabbit.  His first puppet show ever and it was super cute!  They were friends looking for food.

We counted the ferrets who were all happily snoozing and he did enjoy the new little chair swing.  There was ridiculously low lighting in that area though.

We made it upstairs for the animal exploration and were the only ones there.  We met an adorable chinchilla named Diego and a super nice employee who Mr. No thought was fantastic. It was informative and the little guy was adorable.  Mr. No's 2nd favorite part of the day came next.  They had a whole bubble exploration station set up outside.  Big bubbles, little bubbles.  Mr. No was in love!  He especially loved having H make huge bubbles for him to pop. I'm pretty sure that was H's favorite part of the day and that he had as much fun, if not more, as Mr. No.

check out that huge bubble!

he didn't even care when it popped all over him

Mr. No's absolute favorite part of the day was the sand box and the little creek by the playground.  He met a very nice little girl there and spent quite a while digging up rocks with her.  He was so excited to have a little friend to play with!   She even ran over to us at the fox when she had to leave to give Mr. No one of her rocks.  He was so happy!  That's when we knew we made the right decision about starting him in a 2 day preschool in September rather than waiting a year.  He's going to have so much fun with the other kids and will be so happy to have kids his age to play with!

rock hunting

so adorable!!!

someone else was sleepy

After saying hello to the fox, it was time to go home.  Mr. No had to make one stop to play before the car ride home.  All in all it was a nice relaxing afternoon!

Aaaahhhh!