Even though I am a homebody by nature and we homeschool, I've been trying to get out the house more simply because I need the exercise.  I won't "workout" if I'm home so I figured I could at least get a little exercise chasing three kids around.   LOL! 

It has been working, I even did some rock climbing earlier this week.  Rock climbing is a serious workout, btw.  I was just doing "bouldering" where you stay low to the ground and travel horizontally but it got my heart rate up quickly.  Anyway, as part of my new "mission" to get out of the house more and in support of DD's new adventure taking ballet classes, we went to see a free performance by some of the children from her  ballet school at a Germanfest in a nearby town.  The performance took an hour and then we spent two more hours touring the area and looking at the various crafts being displayed and exploring a huge fire engine. 

We learned a lot of interesting things today!  I learned that both my very active boys can sit still for almost a whole hour to watch a ballet performance  (though I think it helped that they were performing A Midsummer Night's Dream which has some fight scenes and bugs!)  We got to see an active bee hive display complete with the queen.  So now we know how to identify a queen bee (and no, she didn't look just like me!)  We saw woodworking and jewelry making and we saw the firemen pack up the engine in a hurry when the got a call while my kids were sitting in the engine cab.  It turned out to be the building right next to where the engine was parked so it didn't actually take off- but those fellow sure do snap to in a hurry when their alarms go off. 

My children got to tour the town where both my mother and I ran around as teens and where my mother met my father.  (Awwww)  And despite my best efforts to convince the poor docent that my kids wouldn't sit still for it- we watched a brief movie about the history of the town which was actually interesting AND the kids did sit still through it for the most part.  We also got to view a diorama of the town and my oldest child learned a new word.   

I can't even remember all the interesting things we saw and did today, in a town that I very much took for granted having grown up viewing it as a place to hang out with my friends.

Next Friday we are going to a Native American festival at the local Native American archeological site and museum (also taken for granted by me) and we may try to go see a Naval battleship that's permanently docked in the next town over.

I know I often assumed that because we lived in a small town that there wasn't much to do, but if there were much more to do- I'd never get to stay home.  Now, hopefully this will eventually mean that I'm in better shape. But if not, at least the kids will have a well-rounded education.