It’s Playtime Poppy

The Children’s Theatre of Cedar Rapids Playtime Poppy is ready to start its 2008-2009 Play season. The first play will be “Timeless Tales” which is a rendition of four of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories.  It will include scenes from “The Princess and the Pea”, “The Little Mermaid”, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, and “The Ugly Duckling”.

This Timeless Tales starts on October 15^th and runs through the 18^th.  The play will be at Jefferson High School in the auditorium (pdf map of the building), located at 1243 20^th St SW in Cedar Rapids.  Here are the show times:

• Wednesday October 15^th is a matinee showing at 1:00pm
• Thursday October 16, 2008 showing at 4:30pm and at 7:00pm
• Friday October 17, 2008 showing at 4:30pm and at 7:00 pm
• Saturday October 18, 2008 showing at 2:00 pm and at 4:30 pm

The rest of the 2008-2009 play season will feature:

• Disney’s 101 Dalmatians – the musical (January 29-31, 2009) at Kennedy High School
• Sleeping Beauty (April 23-25, 2009) at Washington High School

This is truly a low cost entertaining event to bring your children to.  The tickets cost $3.00 and are available for sale 45 minutes before the show starts.  The plays usually last about an hour, and I know I plan on attending, my daughter always loves it.  Maybe I’ll see you there.

posted by: Kristen Everett

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New, Interactive Dinosaur Exhibit at Lindale Mall

Although the Science Station is closed due to this summer’s flooding, that doesn’t meant the children of the corridor will miss an awesome traveling dinosaur exhibit.

The Science Station’s first post-flood exhibit opened at the end of September at the Lindale Mall (4444 First Ave. NE) Admission to the exhibit, which runs through Dec. 31, is $5 for children and $6 for adults.

The Be the Dinosaur^TM exhibit lets visitors travel back in time 65+ million years ago to learn everything about the world the dinosaurs lived in – not only about the dinosaurs, but also about the environment, the plants, animals and insects that shared it.  This hands-on, interactive exhibit was designed by world-renowned paleontologists, and brings dinosaurs to life through the magic of interactive digital simulation, the same technology behind “Finding Nemo.”

Oktoberfest is here!

This weekend is the annual Oktoberfest festival in Amana.

Saturday at 10 a.m. is the parade. It is a nice parade for families. Kids always get a lot of candy and it lasts about an hour.

Sit by the chocolate Haus and the Stone Hearth Bakery. And because it may be a little chilly, you can get coffee, hot chocolate or my daughters favorite a chocolate chai with whipped cream at the Chocolate Haus. They also have great caramel apples at the Chocolate Haus. Across the street you can get a pastry or some cookies.

Mississippi River Museum: A fun and educational getaway for the whole family

We decided to take advantage of the long weekend and take a short trip to Dubuque.  We’d visited the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium  before when my son was two, but now at age four he really seemed to appreciate the impressive sights he was seeing.  Upon entering he rushed to the entrance way tank, following the ducks and turtles with excitement.  Then we moved on to the five large aquariums that let us get up close with the giant catfish, an alligator and an ancient sturgeon We were ooing and awing at everything, including what I think was a huge albino turtle. 

This summer’s attraction was called Venom that displayed all sorts of wonderfully colorful, intriguing and venomous creatures including Spiders, Jelly Fish, Bugs, Scorpions, Poison Dart Frogs, Snakes, Lizards and Fish. I’ll admit I was a little squeamish, but my son loved it.

We also looked through the riverboat museum, explored some wetlands, and took a tour of large 1934 steamer which included seeing the kitchen, bunk rooms, engine room and pilothouse.

TripAdvisor named the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium one of the top ten aquariums and zoos in the U.S. – and it’s right here in our backyard.  I encourage you to take advantage of it!

posted by heatherjoy77

The Iowa State Fair is Here!

Iowa is famous for a few things. Corn. The Field of Dreams. And the Iowa State Fair. Ok, we’re famous for more things than that, but I’ve traveled enough to know these are three near the top of the list.

Yesterday marked the opening day of the Iowa State Fair.

It’s one of the only places in the world you’ll see such pillars of Americana as

• Cow sculpted out of butter
• Fried pickle on a stick (and anything else you can imagine on a stick)
• New records galore – such as last night’s record-breaking corndog chomp