When do kids ever say "No way! That wasn't an hour. It went too fast!"?
When they're having fun. Which definitely was the case while playing paleontologist and searching for fossils at the Mammoth Site.
As "Junior Paleontologists", AJ and Sydney got to climb into elevated sandboxes and learn about the tools of the trade and how to use them. They scraped and brushed back the sand, scooping it away and dumping it into large pails.
Much to AJ's dismay as he whined in his corner about not uncovering any fossils, Sydney suddenly called out, "I FOUND SOMETHING!"
It's like fishing. There's nothing like a little success to totally hold Sydney's attention for the rest of the time, while increasing AJ's frustration beyond words. I note with irony that this is the same boy who informed our tour guide at the gold mine that he would have kept working for a year, even if he didn't find any gold. And now he was ready to move on within minutes from a site where we knew fossil replicas had been planted.
And so he shifted over, leaving Dad to work in the corner with Sydney. (I got in on the action, too, but since I was the one with the camera, there's no evidence of that. I really wanted to climb into the sandbox with the kids.)
At last AJ uncovered a fossil. It took some work to figure out what kind: the skull of a short face bear.
Margaret, the paleontologist guide, even let him lift it up (something she'd told the kids not to do) so that he could flip it around to figure out which side was the top.
And all this time, Sydney kept digging and sweeping. Revealing a mammoth tusk.
If we ever head out this way again, I know one place the kids will want to stop. In the meantime, they've got lots of fun stories to share.
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