Day 8 (Thurs. Aug. 6, 2009) Road Trip

Early this morning, Mom and Dad took off for Columbus, Ohio to go work in the Temple. They left before we all woke up, I think around 6am. So, the house was quiet when we finally were up and going. We did the usual...breakfast, cleanup, adn played with legose and lincoln logs.

The kids were excited for this day because I had promised them that we could go to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis in the afternoon. Apparently, the first Thursday of every month, Target sponsors a family night at the museum...for FREE!!!! This free time is from 4 to 8pm in the evening...perfect amount of time. Love that!...and love that we just so happened to be in Indy on the first Thurs. of the month!

So, after 11am, we went swimming in the South Harbor pool, while Tirsa napped. We only swam for a few hours because we had to be showered and dressed to go down to Indy. By 3pm, we drove down to Indianapolis by way of rt. 31 or Meridian Road. I was able to show the kids all the beautiful homes on this historic street to Indianapolis. They were amazed at the size and granduer of many of the homes.

We arrived right at 4pm and had to search for a parking spot becasue every family was there it seemed like! But it turned out to be perfect because they had renovated and added a parking garage plus a skywalkway from the parking garage to the museum! Nice! They also added some huge dinosaur sculptures on the outside of the museum building...the neat things was that their heads went through the building's walls and you could see their heads once you were inside! I think another dinosaur was just opposite that...body inside with his head poking out of the building!! It was so cool!!

At first I let the kids break up into teams so that they could go see what they wanted. Jenika and Karina were together and Ethan and Daria...I had Alia and Tirsa. It worked out all right, but most the time Daria and Ethan followed me...Jenika and karina pretty much did go together to the different exhibits.

http://www.childrensmuseum.org/

It was fun! There were lots of new things to look at and experience and then there were the old standbys: the water clock, the carosell, the hands-on area Science Works(sponsored by Dow), the old trains, the underwater adventures section. Some of the new things to see were: A "Take Me There" section...featured a destination point in the world and you walked into that area as if in that country. The featured destination was Egypt...pretty neat! We also "walked through" a replica of the inside of a pyramid and wrote our names in hieroglyphics. There was also a great display of Dale Chihuly glass sculptures...awesome!!! You could even make your own in a certain area of the first floor. Just amazing to behold and stunningly beautiful!!

http://www.chihuly.com/installations/childrens/

As it neared 8pm, I made my way with Alia and Tirsa to the front of the museum...of course the others had wondered off right at closing time!! But I wasn't really worried because we were all dressed in bright lime green shirts and I figured I could spot them easily...besides the 4 older ones were told to meet me at the front and they are pretty good at following that kind of instruction. I waited there a while until finally, as the crowds got down to the bare minimum, a security guard ask me who i was looking for. I wasn't really worried, but she asked me for names, full descriptions of what they looked like, what they were wearing, etc. I told her but just said I was just waiting to see if they were still in the building before I wandered outside to look for them. But NO, she put out a "Code Adam" and had multiple workers on the job. I kept trying to tell her that I had told them to meet me at the front of the museum and I hadn't checked outside yet, so that they were just probably out there waiting for me. She was all business!!!....well sure enough, we simply walked out the front doors and there they were playing on various equipment and sculptures out front with the other bagillions of kids!! hahaha! The Security lady made me account for all of them and sent us on our way...She was helpful, but I think a big deal was made out of not so big a deal!!! hahah! Oh well...

We headed back to the car...we were starving, but happy that we had had such a good time. The older kids did mention that it didn't seem like it was exciting as they remembered it. Ahhh...yes...that is the downside of growing up and older....memories you have as a child seem so much bigger than they really are or somehow they are glamorized to such exciting levels!!! Even still, we DID have a great time there....did I mention it was FREE!!!!!!!

Upon leaving the Museum parking lot, we drove around looking for a place to eat and consequently I was able to drive the kids around the downtown Indy area. We saw the State Capitol building and Post Office, the monument on the Circle and other neat buildings, monuments and fountains. As we left the city I drove into a KFC to get food, but while looking into the restaurant and the kind of people that were coming in and out, I opted to drive out of the city and into the suburbs that I knew! yikes!

We ended up driving all the way back up to Westfield and eating at a Chick-Fil-A. This was a new experience in and of itself for the kids. I remember eating at them occasionally in the West and had forgotten that we didn't really have them in the East. So, we ordered a few things and the kids absolutely loved it!!! The CrissCut French Fries especially. We didn't get home till LATE!!! But at least everyone went straight to bed without complaint! It was a fun day!!!