Brady's friend, Miss Raccoon

In Brady's class, their Show-N-Tell is better than the usual "bring all your junk and toys from home and talk about them" that some Show-N-Tells become.  They have a little stuffed raccoon named Miss Raccoon and a little journal to take home in a special bag.  They do fun things with the raccoon for the week and write about it in the journal that stays with Miss Raccoon and then their teacher reads their journal and shares it with the class.  Then it travels to the next kid for the next week.  You can also read and look at what the previous kids do with Miss Raccoon since it's the same journal.  Kinda fun!

We had a really good time with it and Brady really enjoyed taking pictures and telling me what to write about in the journal. 

Over the weekend we had Miss Raccoon, we wanted to drive down to Nebraska City just about 30-40 minutes south of here and go to this cool Arbor Day Tree Farm with a giant tree house and a tractor pulled ride through the woods and stuff.  Well it was raining when we got there so we had to forget about that since it's all mostly outside. 

So Aaron suggested we go to Lincoln instead because we've never been there and in his words "if we just go back home I'm just going to lay on the couch all afternoon and watch college football".  He had me sold. 

So we traveled another 40 minutes to the west of Neb. City to Lincoln.  I looked up on my phone something cheap and easy to do that wouldn't take a lot of time but we could still do something fun.  I found this outdoor Nature Center that was free and it wasn't raining in Lincoln so we could be outside.  Perfect!  They had trails in the woods to walk on with some exhibits and animals on the trails and a little indoor center with some other exhibits and animals.

Brady and Miss Raccoon on the bison bench

Brady and Miss Raccoon with a stuffed Raccoon

Brady and Miss Raccoon in a
teepee in the woods

Brady and Collin on a log in the woods.
Brady looks like he is kind of smiling but he is staring
at a Daddy Longlegs on the end of the branch and worrying
that it's going to get him.  Collin didn't want to keep his shoes
and socks on in the stroller so we just took them off altogether
while he was riding.

Giant toad that we saw camouflaged on the ground.  Brady
wanted it to hop so he poked it with a big stick and it hopped
really far and high and very fast!

Here's some more pictures we put in his journal from the rest of the week with Miss Raccoon.

Brady playing in his box house with Miss Raccoon

Taking Miss Raccoon for a ride in the shopping cart

Here's Brady with the journal the last night.
He really enjoyed writing in it and putting the pictures in at night before bed.

Second/third pages
We also collected some leaves and made rubbings from the nature center.  Brady's class is collecting fall leaves so we sent those into school with him to share too.

It was fun to see him get so excited about writing in his little journal.  He wants to have Miss Raccoon back again sometime this year so he can do it again.