Friday morning we woke the kids up and told them that we had to take them to a baby-sitter’s house because Grandma couldn’t watch them that day (as she normally does on Fridays). We got everyone ready, and around 7:00 AM as we were about to leave the house, John stopped them and told them that we were lying, there was no baby-sitter, and in fact, they were not going to school that day. They were to get in the car and we wouldn’t tell them anything else!
I had gotten them each a new book, and it was waiting on their car seat when they got in the car. We got everyone loaded up and off we went. We went to Tim Horton’s to pick up some breakfast and what do you know - one of our neighbors pulled up beside us! The kids were so excited and the questions started coming…”where are we going?” “Is it Chicago?” “is it the airport?” and so on…
We drove over to Indianapolis and outside of a 20 minute delay because of a wide-load truck, we had an easy drive. Our first stop was to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. We weren’t originally going to go there, but we started hearing such wonderful things about it and I read so many great reviews about it, that we decided we couldn’t pass it up. And boy am I glad we went…it was definitely my favorite part of the trip!
The kids walked through a huge dinosaur exhibit, and the kids loved the Egypt exhibit where there was an airplane they could play in and houses and shops to play in, there was a wonderful Barbie exhibit that the girls loved (even us big girls :) ) and the boys ended up laying in too, and an exhibit that showcased three kids that changed the world, and another exhibit that had a clubhouse and Sundae shop to play in…the whole place was so wonderful and the kids absolutely loved everything they saw!
After that we went to the hotel and checked in. There the kids saw the waterpark and were super excited! We got unpacked and headed out for a late dinner. Right before we left the kids found out that the other two sets of neighbors were there, which of course was a wonderful surprise!
We got to the Cheesecake Factory and had a 1 ½ hour wait. Thankfully, it was attached to a mall, so John and I took the kids on a walk that ended with playing in the Apple store :) The kids were so good! We didn’t sit down to eat until around 8:30, and yet the kids were wonderfully behaved!
Dinner was a little bit of a pain as our waiter really sucked. Us adults didn’t order our meals until after the kids’ meals had arrived (because he never came back) and our drinks weren’t refilled, etc. I actually asked the manager to take off the automatically applied tip (because there were 10 of us) because of how bad the service was. Thankfully, our manager was awesome and finished bussing our table, getting our cheesecake, whatever we needed because he knew we had 6 little kids that wanted to go home! But again, the kids were so good!
The next morning we got up and went down to breakfast. John stayed behind because all of the drains in our room (which was a huge suite!) were clogged, so he waited while the maintenance guy fixed them. Ryan had a meltdown at breakfast because I wouldn’t let him put butter on his fruit (so mean I know), so I took him back up to the room and within minutes he was asleep (no nap the day before :) ). But while I was there, I smelled the horrific smell that was the result of the drain cleaning. The guy assured us that he would get rid of the smell, so while we went down to the waterpark, he put some machine in the room that was supposed to clean the air.
So we took the kids down to the waterpark and they had a blast! Kylie and Josh went down the raft waterslide with John and I multiple times, and Ryan had so much fun playing with Zora in the little pool. Colton spent the entire time in the stroller sitting next to me (I sat on the edge of the pool most of the time because the water was a little colder than I liked :) ) and he was amazing! He didn’t fuss at all, and actually fell asleep for a while (he was in the umbrella stroller, which was why I was shocked he fell asleep).
At break time we headed back to the room for lunch. Since the machine was still cleaning our air, I grabbed the lunchables and we sat outside our room and ate lunch. I’m glad no one came by because we were a sight! After lunch we headed back down to the park until 3:00 when they closed for an hour. At that time we went back to our rooms to start getting ready for dinner. And the maintenance guy was right…the bad smell was gone from our room!
We all got showered and met downstairs. All 18 of us were heading into downtown Indianapolis to Hard Rock Café for dinner. We had a wonderful meal, a great server, and an overall great time! And again, all kids were fantastic! Colton fell asleep in his carrier (thank goodness because he was tired a fussy!), so John and I really did have an enjoyable dinner.
After dinner we headed back to our room where almost all of us watched the Buckeye game. The kids were insane! They were loud and crazy and seemed to be having so much fun! There were so many games going on, and at one time, a huge pillow fight on one of the beds. A couple of the families left during the game, but our one neighbors (who had the room next to us) stayed the whole game, and by that point, the kids were slowing down :) The boys were playing video games, the little ones were watching movies, and Kylie and Jill were playing a quiet game themselves. The kids definitely crashed hard that night!
Sunday morning we got up and took our time packing up and checking out. We then headed to Cracker Barrel and had a really nice lunch…the food was great, the service was great, and the kids, again, were phenomenal! We loaded up the car and headed home!
It was such a great weekend and the kids had a lot of fun. Thankfully they are off school today, so they can catch up on their rest and get back on a semi-normal schedule. I hope they have as great of memories of this weekend as I do!
1 comment:
Now how fabulous is that? What a neat idea and what a great getaway for everyone. I so love your family, your values and your life!!! The surprise trips, the fun times and well look at the pictures, those happy smiling faces say it all!!! FANTASTIC!!!!!
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