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| An Indy 500 Lap & a Smile! |
Highlights from today:
(click here for pictures)
We started the morning by waking up in Indianapolis. Graham was the first one up and climbed into bed with me. I rubbed his back until he fell back asleep-actually, I would stop and he would insist that I kept “tickling his back.” I am not really sure who fell back asleep first but when I woke up, I was almost laying on top of the boy.
The kids were pretty quick to get around and put their clothes on. They had their breakfast snack and then had their bonus breakfast of pancakes. It seems like all of our hotels have been right near a McDonalds and last nights was the same-well, I guess it was the next exit. Maybe tonight’s hotel is near a McDonalds. See I told you I can’t remember details like that.
They really love the McDonald’s pancakes. Seriously, they like them alot. Unfortunately, when we made pancakes (for the first time) a few weeks ago, they were nothing like the McDonald’s one. Reagan even used the words “fluffy” to describe them today. Our first stop this morning was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway-home of the Indy 500.
We bought out tickets and hurried to the bus because it was waiting on us. Anderson finally was able to ride on his bus. The bus took us around the speedway track and told us a little bit about it. It didn’t go fast but to some little boys, it was the fastest bus they had ever been in. Campbell enjoyed being out of her car seat and danced the whole time. Reagan took it all in. Graham is so funny whenever we are listening to someone talk. Any word that he recognizes he will shout back at me or Robby “they said ‘ohio’” or “they said ‘racetrack’”-needless to say, he isn’t the quietest but he is listening.
Back at the museum, we looked at the cars. Reagan was delighted to find a pink one and had Robby take her picture by it. She also wanted her picture by most of the cars-Robby finally had to say no more and she was not pleased. He finally told her that he was “out of film”-which meant nothing to her because she has never heard the word film and was pretty funny to me since he can’t be out of film.
We even were able to climb into a real race car and take our pictures. When Graham got in, he just sat down and you couldn’t even see the top of his head. Reagan was just as excited as the boys about this. Campbell would have walked there-seriously, she was so anxious to get out of that stroller and to the car that she would have taken her first steps if I would have let her. She also thought she was something else. We even had a group shot made at the car-the kids all were looking at the camera and it is a cute picture. Robby forgot to take a picture of it so you can see it but maybe he will tomorrow and I can’t seem to find a picture of baby Reagan when she was here last time.
After we finished the speedway, we drove to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. There are huge dinosaurs outside and Reagan said that she wished we could stop there. Robby said “well, ok” and they were shocked. We had to park on the top floor of the parking deck and wondered about the large crowd. Soon we found out that today is the first day of Spring Break in Indiana. Yesterday, we probably could have had the place to ourselves but today it was wall to wall kids. Though it wasn’t terribly bad-we were able to do what we wanted to do without too much of a wait.
As Robby waited in the line (probably 200 hundred people long), I waited with the kids. Eventually, I told them “I see Daddy, he is getting close.” A few minutes later Anderson said “I can’t wait to see Daddy’s new clothes?” I replied “what?” and he said “you said he was getting ‘clothes.’” Oh, I just want to keep them little forever.
Our first stop was the train area which was Anderson’s favorite part. They had model trains to watch and others to look out, a train station area to play in and even a train to walk through. Though the Thomas the train table attracted the kids-they wanted to play with that even though we have 3 times as many trains and track at home. We then went upstairs to walk through the dinosaur exhibit. Reagan and Anderson saw someone giving a talk and they pushed their way to the front and listened intently. Then we all touched a real dinosaur bone and even dressed up like dinosaurs and sat in a nest.
The next stop was the planetarium for a Big Bird and Elmo show. Reagan and Anderson sat on the front row and the rest of us, sat a few rows back. They showed the moon, sun, big dipper and north star. It was cute-we all even sang Twinkle Twinkle. Graham was all into it too. Campbell on the other hand spent her time drinking her milk (even though no drinks were allowed) and crawling on the floor. She didn’t seem to care to much about everything going on above her head. Reagan said that the movie was her favorite part of the museum.
After the movie, we headed upstairs for lunch. The admission prices were high (my trip splurge) but the food prices were crazy too. But we ordered a pizza and everyone was happy and our budget was not blown. While Robby got the pizza, I tried to find a spot to sit-imagine a room with 500 tables (all full), narrow tiny aisles and me pushing a double stroller through. Yes, it was a nightmare. But soon we found a table and all was well. Campbell was tired and hungry and she let us know about it until Robby arrived with the food-fortunately though, it was so loud in that room that no one noticed and we didn’t really either. I cut her pizza first and she had almost finished her whole slice by the time I started eating.
After lunch, we walked up the ramp to the 2nd floor and played in the Dora and Diego exhibit. Lots of fun and a few moments of panic. Robby had gone to the bathroom and we briefly lost Graham. Brief-didn’t seem like it to me. I had Reagan and Anderson stand by the buggy (with Campbell in it) while I looked for him. He had just been beside me and then he was gone. I walked around thinking he couldn’t have gone too far and I just couldn’t see him because of all of the kids. When I turned back around-Reagan and Anderson weren’t by the buggy. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw Reagan’s yellow shirt darting away. I figured she had found Graham but now where was Anderson. He was nearby the stroller playing of all things (while I am having a crisis) and I asked him where he was supposed to be and he said “oh, I forgot.” Anyway, Reagan returned Graham and my blood pressure eventually went down. I knew he wasn’t far-but still it is just a sinking feeling. Reagan was the hero for the day. Maybe I need to buy a leash or start dressing everyone the same. I probably would have if I would have thought about it for today since it was so crazy. Actually, how could a two year old stay in one place with so much to see and touch in that room….
So we left as soon as Robby returned. We went to a room full of movie costumes. Reagan thought the Wonder Woman costume was funny and after her bath tonight, she even tucked her panties into her shirt and said that she looked like Wonder Woman. Then we went to Egypt for a walk around and even another room, that I can not remember what it was-it had desks and trees in the exhibit.
After all of this, we made it to the top floor and got into the line for the carousel. While Robby waited, I took the kids through the mirror maze. Poor Campbell was sleeping until right after Robby bought the tickets and then she woke up. She missed the carousel and would have loved it. She did like waving at the kids though as they passed-there was one happy one and two sad ones. Not all of the horses went up and down. Reagan and Anderson’s horses didn’t (we didn’t even know to look) so they were bummed out and Reagan was on the verge of tears. But Graham was sitting behind them and his horse was going up and down and he was having a blast. Each time they passed, Reagan looked pitiful, Anderson would yell “mine’s not working” and Graham would smile, wave and scream “hi, mommy.”
After the carousel, everyone was made happy with the promise of coke and candy in the car. But first we had one more stop-the Barbie exhibit. Reagan could have looked at the dressed forever and played with the Barbie’s forever as well. She really enjoyed this exhibit. Up next, was a potty break and taking a few pictures outside of the dinosaurs.
We then hit the road and drove the almost 3 hours from Indianapolis to Cleveland. We stopped once for a big kid potty break. Graham has been going potty most of the time on the trip but is often skittish about the potties. I think he is afraid of pottying on the floor. He has mentioned that a few times but I can usually convince him to go with me. No diapers when we get home-somebody hold me to that!
We made pretty good time considering that we were at the Children’s museum for over 4 hours. It was still daylight when we made it to Columbus and we stopped by the capitol. The kids could really tell the differences between the capitol and ours-this one doesn’t have a dome. Kind of sad looking. We then found a Skyline Chile to eat out.
Graham had a hot dog (imagine), Reagan and Anderson had spaghetti with a mound of cheese on top, Robby had a chili dog and I had a chili potato. They are known here for putting chili on their spaghetti but no one tried that tonight. After we finished, we had about 6 more miles until our hotel. It is also a very new hotel-kind of on the posh side and a big bathroom (yea for Campbell!) It has bins and there are 6 of them so as soon as we walked in (and I mean as soon as we did) the kids were taking of their shoes and putting them in the bins. Robby and I had to take off our shoes and put them in too. Next the boys had their socks in their bins as well. Somewhere they have learned to put their socks in their shoes and they do that all the time. Makes me crazy because I usually find socks in shoes after I have started a load of clothes in the washer.
Anyway, they all had a shower and then played for a few minutes while Robby tried to cram all of our stuff back into 3 suitcases. Kind of hard when you have spread out across a whole minivan. After playtime, it was bedtime and everyone went to sleep quickly except Graham. After a few minutes of tossing a turning he came to me and said he was ready to get up. He finally calmed (after about an hour) and fell asleep-glad we haven’t had to deal with that every night.
The kids are sad about going home tomorrow but Anderson said “I miss all of the people that I know” so he is ready to get home. Even though these hotels beds are umpteen times more comfortable than my bed at home, I think I might be ready to get home to my bed too and our next big project-changing the clothes out for the season and moving the boys into one room and the girls into another room. Maybe next weekend or maybe the next or maybe we could just go on another trip.
