Road Trip 2012, Part I

 

We left Dallas on Monday, July 16th.  Our first pit stop was in Oklahoma City.  We stumbled upon their downtown botanical gardens, with a water fountain for the kids to splash in.   Free parking.  Free admission.  Are you listening, Dallas?  Found a shady table and chairs, had lunch and let the kids splash around.

Got back on the road and soon afterwards heard a strange sound.  Something under the front bumper was making noise so we just hacked it off with some manicure scissors and were back on our way.

Spent our first night in Wichita, KS in a Spring Hill Suites (Marriot.)   Best set up of all hotels we stayed in.  Had a small desk which partitioned the beds from a sitting area, so at least felt like we weren’t all in the same room.  Also had nifty reading lights on the headboard so I could read easily.  Score!

The best coffee of our entire trip was in Wichita.  Actually, was the best coffee I’ve had possibly ever.  Found this place on Yelp and were over the top pleased with it. 

Kansas is not very exciting.

But sometimes you make new friends at gas stations.

And Mommy gets to read a bit.

And when you finally get to Denver, you just go to sleep!

On Wednesday, we took the day off from driving and just went sight seeing around the Denver area.  First stop, Hammonds Candies.  Free tour, free candy!  Tons of fun.  From there, we went to an old mine.

Tried to strike it rich, but I’m afraid only left with enough gold for maybe a Sonic Happy Hour drink.

Thursday morning we left Denver, armed with new movies like The Wizard of Oz and Hello Kitty, and headed for Salt Lake City.  Very long day.

Had to institute the “side of the road timeout” rule.

But finally made it to the really lovely little town of Ogden, UT.  Stayed a nice full-fledged Marriot so had the Executive/Concierge Level privileges but no reading lamps on the headboard!

Part 2 Coming Soon.

Road Trip Do’s

 

Decided to shave off the (very cool) Mohawk in favor of buzz cuts for our big vay cay on Monday.  All joined in the fun.

Or not so much fun.

When Finn gets my camera

 

Okay, so it’s just my iphone camera, but it’s funny when I come across his random pictures.

I love this one.  Just a shadow of a boy.

Big brother playing “dentist” with Claire.  I guess it’s funny because I never knew any of it went on and then there are all these pictures.  Their secret lives.

 

Tiny Bunnies and other exciting critters

 

Last Monday, the kids all came yelling from the backyard that they had seen three baby rabbits in the backyard…oh yes, sure you did.  Lo and behold, momma rabbit had dug her nest right under their slide and the babies had all hopped right out.  By the time I got out there, we could only find two, but they stuck around all day…despite their sheer terror from two toddlers and a 7 year old monitoring their every move.  They were very tiny, and very still…so still that the kids could even pick them up.  Needless to say, they did not stick around long enough for us to start calling ourselves rabbit farmers, but it was a nice treat for a day.

Sadly, we said goodbye to baseball this week.  I think I have had nothing more enjoyable as a parent to date, as this season’s baseball games.  The boys on his team are all super, the coaches were great and the games were lots of family fun. 

We are on week 3 of swim lessons at the Y.  They are inexpensive, and the kids all seem to enjoy them.  Duncan is doing particularly well, and this week is one-on-one with his coach.  I am kind of hoping he will want to do swim team at some point. 

We got to have breakfast at a really great place where kids can play with some of our oldest and best friends in the world.  These two have been friends since their lives began, and continue to be close and enjoy each other.  It’s really a rich blessing for me to watch them grow. 

We are pet sitting this week for this creature.  He is a green anole, and is more endearing than I imagined him to be.  The kids are really having a good time, but guess who feeds him his meal worms?  Yes, that’s right.  I’m figuring it is a good lesson learned.  Not ready for a dog or cat quite yet.

Oh, and all that sadness about baseball?  Totally being (temporarily) remedied by Finn starting tee ball.  There are only three games, though, so our relief of kid sport fever will be very short lived.  I think next is Claire doing gymnastics, which might be the most entertaining of all.

Have a good week!