Big day out!

Another exciting couple of days....

Monday

Business as usual. Schmoo to preschool. Mama to the gym. Bean stayed home with Nana in the morning and then we dropped her off in town as we went to pick up Schmoo. I kept the kids out over lunch with a stop at Wal-Mart to make up some thank you pictures for Schmoo's friends from the party. The kids had A&W for lunch and then we headed to gymnastics. We had to make a quick detour home to pick up Max the dog as it was stuffie day at gymnastics.

Bean and I watched until he had finished his snack and then we went for a walk to the pharmacy where we found Nana. Back home for quiet time. Bean had a nice big nap. I don't think he was feeling 100% today. Schmoo spent all of her time opening up all the packages of the gifts she received at her party. I have to give her credit. She was forced to wait almost a full 24 hours before she opened any of the presents up. She had unwrapped them with her friends, but since we had a nap and then went for dinner on Sunday night she hadn't had a chance to open the actual gifts. She had them all unwrapped and organized in her room by the time her alarm clock went off. I had an unsuccessful attempt to nap, between Schmoo's visits and the phone.

Papa was home before supper time so spent 1/2 hour in the backyard with the kids. Bean woke up pretty groggy but seemed to come around a bit after moving rocks. Bean and toast for supper and Babar! I left just before 6pm to meet some friends in town for dinner. It was a nice evening out. I even managed to have a raspberry cooler cocktail.....this could mean trouble for me this summer. Good thing it's not far to walk home! I returned to a very quiet house...everyone tucked in bed fast asleep.

Tuesday

A big day out today. We had a relatively leisurely start to the morning with nowhere specific to be. We got ourselves organized and packed the kids up in the car to drive up the valley a couple of hours for another hot springs trip. It was another absolutely gorgeous day here today, so a great day for drive through the mountains. The kids did great. We made it to our first destination in time for lunch and decided on the local burger barn. We sat out on the picnic table and ate our burgers, fries and onion rings.

Then we made our way down to the path along the lakefront where we took some pictures, threw some stones in the water and went for a stroll. Both kids managed to fall and scape part of their bodies (Schmoo - knees, Bean - elbow), but everyone came away relatively okay. We made our way back along the main street and found some treasures along the way....a Babar sticker book for Schmoo's birthday and $200 worth of new clothes for Mama (thanks Grandma Lady). It was a very successful stop.

Next stop - the hot springs. We practically had the pool to ourselves, sharing it only with another family with twin daughters who were about 8. It was SO bright, almost too painful to be in the water, but we hung out on the steps for 45 minutes or so before the kids started getting antsy. Both of them loved being pulled around by me on the floating noodles. At one point, Schmoo was floating on her back with her arms on one noodle and her legs on the other. They were most fascinated with dipping their feet into the cold pool and then going into the hot pool. A lack of listening kept us from our original plan to stop for ice cream. It's always painful to enforce the consequence, but it has to be done. Both kids managed to have a bit of a snooze in the back while we made our way back home.

We did stop along the way at a place that advertised ice cream, but were sadly disappointed when they had neither ice cream, a frappacino for Nana or even bottled water available. I certainly won't be stopping there again! Instead we pushed for home where I dropped of Nana and the kids to run to the grocery store and pick up two Dairy Queen sundaes for the kids. They were happy to eat them up and was it any surprise that it took them forever to settle down when we tried to put them to bed 20 minutes later.

Papa made up a beautiful Alaskan King Crab leg dinner with crab he had ordered from work. I'm now sitting stuffed at the computer....there's a berry cream puff in the fridge waiting for me and I don't know whether my stomach can handle much more today, especially with no gym time in sight until probably Friday!