Dinosaurs 101

Dinosaur Train!

Based on the hit PBS Kids Television series, Jim Henson's Dinosaur Train™ is back for a second year at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. You will meet Buddy, the loveable and curious T. Rex, and celebrate the fascination that children have with dinosaurs and trains!

Your 2 1/2 hour adventure will begin at the historic Durango depot where an authentic steam locomotive will pull your train to the Nature Trackers Adventure Area. Along the way you’ll enjoy music and stories and receive your Nature Trackers Club Guidebook filled with fun and educational activities!

At the Nature Trackers Adventure Area, you'll find fossil dig sites, dinosaur tracking, temporary tattoos, live entertainment and a chance to have your photo taken with Buddy! For your convenience a concessions tent will be available to purchase delicious lunch and snacks. After your 1 1/2 hour fun-filled layover at the adventure area your train will take you back to the Durango depot.

 

For more information, check out the official Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Website

 

http://www.durangotrain.com

What? Makes us different

 How many times a year do ya hear someone shout,

 "To the Moon!" and watch all eyes on Main street turn towards the sky??? 

We lost count but that would be us......

 Who else but 

Mountain Bike Joe 

would take a

 Zen moment with a Zen frog?

Right in the middle of Iron Horse training....

No matter how you look at it!

Play. Simply said. Play.

We wear our play clothes everyday and rarely wear our grown-dressy clothes! We're ready at a moments notice

to play!

Word of the day

 SNAFU

snafu \sna-FOO, SNAF-oo\, noun:

1. a badly confused or ridiculously muddled situation: 

adjective: 1. out of control; chaotic: a snafu scheme that simply won't work.

verb: 1. muddle: Losing his passport snafued the whole vacation.

I thought it was a brilliant plan but ran into a snafu! 

Thank you dictionary.com

 

Did ya know?

 Did ya know?
That these giraffes have been miniaturized so that you can keep them in your pocket for good luck? Meet a family of Giraffes without even going to Africa with Good Luck Minis® Giraffes from Safari Ltd®.

 Oh yeah, there are pink elephants!
This one belongs to the 
WubbaNub family from Mary Meyer.
You just won't lose the passy!

Curious George is a monkey!

 Not a weasel!
Classic tin toys take you back to your childhood! Do you jump or blink when George pops up?

Boredeom Busters!

 Full Moon Tonight!
Howl, do a dance, learn more about the phases of the moon!
Make some craters by dropping some marbles into a bowl of flour to see how craters could form! Do some moon walking by putting pillows all over the floor and wearing your moon boots!

 Start summer with a toasted marshmallow! 

Make up your own S'More creation with your favorite candies! Or just dip your marshmallow in chocolate and roll it in....... just like the candy stores do!

 OOOOH what about a S'More with a slice of strawberry on it? Yum. 

Tastes like some more!

Make your own rune stone alphabet! 

Gather stones and mark them with your very own symbols that have meaning to you. 

Toss them before you, read what they say, 

just like the ancients!

The Iron Horse Classic

Every year, cyclists flood the streets of Durango and ride their way up to Silverton. These cyclist come from all over the nation and try to bring home the glory of winning the Iron Horse Classic. The race will start on Sunday morning as these racers try to beat the steam powered locomotive to Silverton Colorado. It is always a test between man and machine. The first official race started in 1976  with 36 riders. Over the years, the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic has added other events to the roster, such as BMX races, trails, a criterium and so much more! Now we can expect over 3,000 participants for the event! Wow! One of the participants will be our very own Bender Joe! He has been training all year just for this very event.

Meet Joe! This is the official Durango Toy Depot racer for the Iron Horse Classic! Also shown here is his faithful dog named Duke! They love going out for races and hikes. 

This year, there will be another exciting mountain bike race that will weave through downtown Durango and even go through the Famous Steamworks Brewery! thats right, the racers go THROUGH Steamworks! How cool is that?!

There will also be a race that is called the Cruzer Crit. This means that when one-o-clock rolls around, downtown Durango will be filled with people in crazy costumes and racing on whatever man powered and two wheeled device they can find! Should be an exciting event!

 So come hang out on May 26, 2013 for the 42nd Annual Iron Horse Bicycle Classic and be ready to have a great time!

Dinosaurs 101 King Cryolophosaurus

 Meet King Cryolophosaurus! (Cry-o-loaf-a-saur-us)

The Cryolophosaurus was a carnivore and lived during the Jurassic period. It had an odd shaped crest on top of his head that looked like Elvis Presley’s hair-do. That is why it is nickname is Elvis-osaurus! This dino was a biped, meaning it walked on two legs instead of all four. He grew to be about 20 feet long and over 1,000 pounds! It was found in Antarctica which was much closer to the equator back in the Jurassic period. it was filled with a lush green forest and many other dinosaurs for The King to hang out with..The King liked to burst into song whenever he felt the time was right, which was all the time!

Wacky Wednesday!

 Costumes Galore!

Everyone needs an arsenal of costumes just in case an occasion comes up where dressing up is necessary. Here at Durango Toy Depot, we have a great number of costumes available for you!

Our Silly Alien must work for NASA! He has been all over our universe discovering alien intelligence and finding new and awesome galaxies! His outfit boasts the NASA logo and is super authentic. These costumes come in all sizes for the astronaut in everyone! 

For the princess in you, we have anything that you could desire to outfit your royal highness. From poofy pink tutus to shining jewelry and crowns and even some fairy wings in case you must take flight at a moments notice. Not only are these dresses beautiful, most of them are covered in sparkling sparkles!!

Durango Toy Depot even has a flight suit for the future pilot in the family! This superior suit comes with a matching cap! Practice your salute in this blue suit. Until you are able to fly in a real Blue Angel, fly this kite that will make you feel like you are soaring next to the clouds!

Word of the Day!

 British slang! Cheerio!

Today's word is:

codswallop: kodz - wall - uhp

codswallop means rubbish or nonsense 

We shall see if we can use it in a sentence today.  

Sometimes we tell stories that are pure codswallop!

Boredom Buster

 

Our #1 Boredom Buster of all time! To the moon Alice! 

Check this out! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=FuxZz21iyJU&NR=1

Instigate Fun in historic downtown Durango!

From the Brain of Marky Sparky!

Faux bow, everything about it is fake! How's that? From Marky himself....

"Everything about this toy is fake. We admit it. From the faux Black Ebony handle to the fake bow string. It's all fake. All fake except the performance. The Faux Bow was designed with only one goal: To be the best performing toy bow on the market. We beat all the competition by miles. Every Nerf® enthusiast's jaw will drop at the distance and accuracy of this beast. It out shoots and out distances everything in the class. My mom always told me not to judge a book by its cover. No truer words could be said about the Faux Bow™. Under its fake exterior lies the heart of a dragon (here comes the segue). So, if dragons are on the menu... Faux Bow™ is ready to do some slaying.

Comes with 3 perfectly balanced Faux titanium arrows and one 3 arrow quiver."
 

After reading all this and actually taking one out of the package... we decided to see for ourselves if this was the best performance bow on Main street. We put on our best Brave face and took to the sidewalk! At first, we tried to shoot the arrows inside Fuzziwig's Candy Factory front door from across the street. We figure the street is about 60' wide. Our aim was off a little as we kept hitting above the door! Then we tried our front door, alas we overshot the door and hit the awning above the door several times in a row. The challenges we had were the wind, the cars travelling on Main Street, and the people walking on the sidewalk! Nonetheless, we had fun (and so did the pedestrians)!

 

Nerf® is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc.

Dinosaurs 101 Cretoxyrhina

We have our own Shark Tank!
Meet Mr. Cretoxyrhina and his daughter Carla!
Even though they are really friendly, we keep them in their tank (they need water too).

Cretoxyrhina: kre-tocks-e-rhine-ah

Mr. Cretoxyrhina is a large fish or shark. His skeleton (and Carla's too) are made of cartilage and did not fossilize well because cartilage is softer  than bones. It is the earliest member of the shark family. It is a fish eater and had a taste for larger prey. The Cretoxyrhina family has extremely sharp teeth and was known to rip apart it's prey. They ruled the Western Sea during the Cretaceous period. The best fossils are its teeth which they lost very often. They have great sense of smell and extraordinary eye site.
Mr. Cretoxyrhina grew to be about 2/3 as long as a school bus!

Taste of Durango 2013

 

 Taste of Durango 2013 to benefit

Manna Soup Kitchen

Who is Manna and what do they do for our community?

 

"Manna serves breakfast, lunch, sack lunches and hot dinners to go Monday through Friday, and hot brunch and sack lunches on Saturday and Sunday. Our clients include the working poor, individuals, families, children, the elderly, and the homeless.  Our sack lunch program fills the County’s Department of Human Services gaps by supplementing the food stamp program and school lunch program.   Manna collaborates with business partners and other non-profits that provide food to their clients. Manna helps stock the Silverton Food Bank and re-distributes excess fresh and canned donations to the Food Bank, VOA Shelter, Safehouse, Hilltop House, Loaves and Fishes in Pagosa Springs, and Mercy Housing.

 

In 2013 Manna expects to:
Serve 68,000 meals, provide 20,600 sack lunches, distribute 1200 hygiene packs, and provide 6 students with internship opportunities." 

That's alotta stuff for Manna to do! So we at Durango Toy Depot play a miniscule part in all of this by volunteering at Taste of Durango. Sure, we take our toys and some games so people can play games and win prizes but more importantly, we donate all we do at the Taste of Durango so that Manna Soup Kitchen can continue their work in our community. 

Durango is a great place to live, it's also a great place to eat! 

Join us, this Sunday as we celebrate what Durango has to offer!

Word of the Day

Today's Word is

 Effervesce!

Eff-er-vess

1. To give off bubbles of gas.

2. To issue forth in bubbles.

3. To show enthusiasm, excitement, liveliness.

Did ya Know?

Did Ya Know?
 Crayola brand crayons were the first kids crayons ever made, invented by cousins, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. Crayola's first box of eight Crayola crayons made its debut in 1903. The crayons were sold for a nickel and the colors were black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green.

 Thinking that Spirograph was a creation of the trippy 70′s, I found it was actually invented much earlier, by British engineer Denys Fisher in 1965. Based on some rather complex mathematical equations, Fisher exhibited his creation at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair in ’65, later selling the distributing rights to Kennar, Inc. who introduced it to the U.S. market in 1966. 
Written by Andrew Payne on April 16, 2010

Glow Sticks... aka chemiluminescent sticks! These started out as a signal device for the US Navy in about 1965. The 3 part wonder is all about chemistry!

Boredom Busters Mother's Day

Nail Art by Klutz

Spoil Mom this Mother's Day with some snazzy fingernails that you have painted and created just for her! Better yet, you both could have matching nails!

This book has everything you need, pictures, ideas, and easy to peel off nail polish!

This Coupon, Just For You!

Make your own coupon book filled with coupons for Mom to use at home! 

Anything from doing the dishes to washing the car!

 All the little things that matter!

Tell a story!

Use this great idea for a mini diorama that tells Mom a story. Or make her the aquarium she has always wanted! Sheez, I bet you could even put pictures of everyone in your family in there too!

Here's where to find this!

                                                                 http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/diorama/aquarium/

Dinosaurs 101

Meet Cory & Perry checking out the spring flower!

Cory is a Corythosaurus (ko-ree-tho-soar-us) and

 Perry is a Parasaurolophus (pare-a-soar-ol-o-fus).

Perry is also a one man band!

 

Cory the Corythosaurus was a large, plant-eating, duck-billed dinosaur !

Cory was about 30 feet  long,  about 6 feet tall at the hips, and may have weighed up to 10000 pounds! That's about 5 cars!

Cory has a  hollow, bony crest on top of its long head in the shape of a helmet flattened on the sides (Corythosaurus means "helmet lizard"). His  nostrils went up through the crest. The crest may have been used to make sounds,somewhat like that of a French Horn that could be heard for miles! He could probably smell really well too because the part of Cory's brain that senses smell was located in his crest.

Corythosaurus had a toothless beak and hundreds of cheek teeth that it used to grind up its food. Being a herbivore,  Cory and Perry walked on two legs , had shorter arms, and a long, heavy tail.

We doubt that they were really pink but we weren't around in the Cretaceous period some 80- 65 million years ago.

What's the difference between the 2 you ask? Well, Perry was much larger that Cory, about 10 feet longer and 2 feet taller! Perry's crest was about 6 feet long from his snout to his back (which had a notch where the tip of his crest would touch if he tipped his chin up).

Interestingly enough both Perry & Cory were relatively smart dinosaurs based on the size of their skull. Musical too!

Houston, we have lift-off!

Hape Toys, but we call them "happy toys"

"Hape Toys is one of the world's largest producers of toys made from sustainable materials. 

 Hape Toys are both creatively designed and eco-friendly.  

Hape Toys believes that the future begins and belongs to children, and creates toys that inspire play, learning, and exploration of the world we live in.  

Each product is developed to enhance a child's developmental skills. 

What children see as fun, parents recognize as age-appropriate learning basics; social, sensory, physical and emotional skills. Through responsible business practices, 

Hape Toys aspires to leave the world a better place. By using natural materials, water-based paints, and maintaining strict quality and safety standards, every toy made is an investment children will love and parents can trust."

Not just any toys.... Hape (HAPPY) toys!

Word of the day

 il·lu·mi·nate

Eh-loo-min-ate

1. To  brighten with light.

2. To decorate with lights.

3. To make understandable: clarity

4. To enlighten intellectually or spiritually

5. To  celebrate

 

Boredom Busters

It's make a hat weekend!

 In honor of the Kentucky Derby! 
It's time to make a really schwanky 
hat like this one!
 Then you can show it off to all your friends Have a hat parade to the infield before the race, enjoy a minty beverage, and watch the race begin! This is our Saturday hat!

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo!

Cinco de Mayo is seen as a day to celebrate the culture, achievements and experiences of people with a Mexican background, who live in the United States!

Of course everyone needs their own

 personalized everyday,baseball cap!

 Bling it out! 

Pinstripe it!

Autograph it!

Color it!

Squish it and squash it!
Make it your own signature!

Which Hat?

Today looks like it's gonna be a

sun hat kinda day when I go out to play!

Here's a tip we picked up on Pinterest.... 

cinnamon in the sand box will help keep the bugs away!

Cinnamon in your coffee will give your coffee a great new flavor!

Cinnamon in your coffee or on your applesauce can help food to be metabolized at a slower rate.

There you have it, more uses for the giant tub of 

cinnamon in the cupboard!

Dinosaurs 101

 Meet Max & Mitch! 

These brothers often get their tentacles in a tangle!

Max & Mitch are michelinoceras: 

mich-el-in-ash-er-a

We are herbivores from the Triassic period (living in the ocean at that!). My brother and I live under the sea and love to perform! We never turn down a chance to show visitors what we can do in the sea!

These two brothers are related to today's squid and Nautilus. They  had many arms or tentacles. Unlike today's Squid this Triassic creature lived in a straight shell. It moves around by drawing water into a chamber and out of the chamber with its funnel shaped body, this way it uses jet propulsion. It eats fish by catching fish with its tentacles and devouring it in its jaws. It is capable of diving of diving at great depth to hunt. Max & Mitch lived from Ordovician to the Triassic period in oceans.