So far, our Advent plan has been working beautifully. The planned out rings have helped me pace things out a bit, and the kids are excited to pull down a new ring each day. And since all of the activities are in my google calendar, when things need to change, I can deftly switch out the ring and replace it with an updated one.
Nearly two weeks ago (this post has sat in drafts for awhile) trekked out to a Christmas tree farm to get our tree. It should have been idyllic and picturesque. It was snowing, and well, we were at a Christmas tree farm for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t, however, cold enough for the ground to be frozen. So while the snow was covering the ground, the ground was actually very soft and mucky. It also turned out that Jr is not a fan of walking in the snow. And we couldn’t find the wagon that was transporting groups to their desired tree patch. Nor did we know to grab a map to figure out which tree patch we wanted to explore to begin with.
This week as flown by — I can’t believe that a week from tonight it will already be Thanksgiving. Wow.
This week has been filled with good things, and there are a lot of good things on the horizon.
Some days just stick out for all the right reasons. Milestones, holidays, and sometimes just a random week day that goes perfectly. Tuesday was one of those days. Junior and I snuck downtown during the school day (shh don’t tell MaM) and were able to enjoy the Jingle Rails display at the Eiteljorg Museum. He and I were both delighted in looking at the trains and all of the miniatures carved and created by artist Paul Busse. The scenes were all landmarks from our National Parks, as well as a replica of some downtown Indianapolis. We took in other parts of the museum as well, but we made three separate walks through the exhibit in the two hours we were there. He was fascinated by the miniature Old Faithful Geyser, which blew out steam every two minutes. “Geyser!” (which sounds oddly like dinosaur) & “Hot water!” he chirped, each time it went off. He was excited to see the Downtown landscape, and was so excited to see all of the snow and evergreen trees. We’ll definitely be going back as a family before it leaves January 9th!
It’s was one of those days I’ll keep close to my heart for always.
I am sitting here, listening to RAIN pour down in central Indiana, something I haven’t heard for any amount of time in ages. Oh wait…it’s over. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.
We had two of our five days of fall break disrupted by vomit, but overall, we were able to have a lot of fall fun these past few days. Wednesday we visited the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, including Skeletown, their haunted house (during friendly ,lights-on hours), which the kids loved. Actually, Junior was excited to “see halloween!”, MaM was more confused as to why we’d want to see all of the skeletons and gore and what not. But they gave out just enough candy that she stopped asking questions and rolled with it.
Thursday was disrupted by Junior having a mild stomach bug. Bah.
Friday we packed up and heading down to Brown County State Park for a day of outdoor fun. We had a great family day of hiking and exploring and just being together. To mix it up, instead of coming home, we spent the night a few miles down the road. I’m pretty sure the hotel lost money on us — the kids watched all kinds of cable tv, we visited the breakfast buffet multiple times, the kids had multiple baths, and we went swimming and tubbing all between the hours of about 6:30am and 11:30am Saturday morning.
We then packed up and headed to Columbus, Indiana, home to Kids Commons, a fun hands-on museum for kids. There are three levels of fun for kids of all ages. The four of us played for three hours — climbing, exploring, rolling balls, shooting baskets, playing with the interactive light board and, get this –rock climbing. MaM was geeked to try the climbing wall and she climbed up the wall and rang the bell at the top THREE times. It was awesome to watch her be so confident and excited in herself.
The kids (and grownups) were exhausted, and our ride home was a quiet one. It was funny to think that we were only about 70 miles away from home. It was a great escape.
Today is the last day of MaM’s official fall break, but she’s getting a “bonus” day — it’s her turn for the stomach virus. She’s finally keeping food down, but wasn’t earlier today, so she’s taking her first sick day of the year. She’s bummed about being sick — she’s missing a birthday party, and a trunk or treat event today. And, as she pointed out, her school friends will now have to wait until Tuesday to see……..that she got glasses over fall break!
Climbing the Fire TowerHe actually sat still for a few portraits!Here she is….five going on fifteen.
P.S. There’s still time to enter my 1800Flowers giveaway — see the previous post to enter!
