Meeting the Gruffalo!

If you have never read The Gruffalo, stop reading this and go read that book. It is a good one, trust me.

Riley Cates and I have loved reading this book and several others by Julia Donaldson, so when we heard that the gruffalo was going to be at Wallington Hall today, we knew we had to go! Apparently most of the children in northern England felt the same way! :) See that big brown guy with "terrible tusks and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws"? That's the gruffalo!

(Riley Cates, while she loves the books, was having none of meeting this guy!)

I, on the other hand, got close enough to touch him!

And to see the purple prickles all over his back!

There was a lady reading all of the gruffalo books, so we stopped in for story time. Riley Cates enjoyed this part much more!

I've written about Wallington Hall before on this blog. It's one of our favorite places. Mainly because of this cool train!

We need some tickets, please!

You have to really watch Riley Cates--she's a climber!

We stopped for a picnic on this fun boat! Not a bad place for lunch!

Then we headed to the playground with loads and loads of other people. I had to queue up (and learn what that even meant!) to ride on this amazing thing.

Are you sure it's going to hold me?

It did! I'm ready to ride again!