Weekend Recap: Vacation Staycation, Part 2 (Not really a staycation because we left for a bit...)

It's already Sunday, again, but I have a few rare minutes of free time while Andy is at the gym and Ben is napping, so I'll see if I can write this quickly!  Hmmm, I really have to think to remember what we did last Saturday.  Wow, my memory stinks!   Ben and I went to music class in the morning and then Andy finished painting our bedroom in the afternoon.  I was a little nervous that the color would be too dark, but it is perfect and relaxing.  I just love it!  Benji and I made a quick trip to the mall and ran some errands while Andy painted, and then we came home to get ready for our big road trip!

Such a good helper picking out holiday scented soap!

Although part of the reason our 4 day road trip turned into a 1 night trip to the Dells was due to poor planning on our part, it really worked out perfectly.  I was a little leery about how Ben would do in a hotel room.  He goes to bed at 7:30 so we didn't want to sit in silence in the dark for the rest of the night, so we opted to rent a cabin.  Since it was a Sunday in the off-season, it was actually quite reasonable.  We ended up with a 3 bedroom + a loft, 2 bathroom cabin.  It was spacious yet cozy!  Since we had enough room to sleep 10 people, we decided to invite some friends to join in the fun.  Luckily, our friend Maggie was able to join us!  (Although we were sad that her hubby was on-call.)  We made it there just in time for Andy to watch some of the Packers game.  However, he was loving the cabin and the scenery (and his awesome wife who found the place) so much that I would venture to say that he would have been just fine without the game.  

We were so happy we opted for the cabin over a hotel room.  There was much more room for Ben to explore AND the kitchen even had a perfect spot for his lobster chair.  He's quite the messy eater so it really helps to keep him contained for meals.  Benji even had his own room with bunk beds.  The fireplace was two sided so that you could see if when you were outside on the deck too.  Such a good idea!

After snacking a bit, we went to check out the water park.  I was expecting Ben to like it a little more than he did, but we still had fun.   I would have posted more pictures of my little shark in action, but unfortunately the majority of them are blurry--boo!  After we swam, we went back to the cabin for some dinner.  Andy made some tasty pumpkin ravioli for dinner!  After the little guy went to bed, it was vino for the girls and pumpkin beer for Andy.  We played an intensely awesome game of cranium for a good 3+ hours before we crashed for the night a few minutes before Ben woke up.

I wish I could say Ben slept like a champ in the pack 'n play, but not only did he end up in our room, he ended up on our bed.  He would not, could not, did not sleep in the pack 'n play.   I did not realize he is a total wiggle worm in the night and multiple times he was completely perpendicular to Andy and me.  I was barely sleeping because I was afraid he was going to climb out of the bed.  I remember being excited reading 6:24 on the clock, because it meant that the night was over.  We had a fairly lazy Monday morning, complete with pumpkin pancake thanks to the super chef Andy, before hitting the outlet mall!  

Although it was a short little getaway, it was 100% awesome (minus the sleep, so more like 99.99%.)  Actually, I suppose I have to subtract some more awesomeness if we count Ben's crashing fall during lunch.  We were almost ready to go, and Ben was standing on the bench of the booth and he somehow fell forward and smashed his little nose into the table.  Lots of tears and a little blood later, he was as good as new.  He slept most of the way home and it was mighty nice to be home again, even though we were barely gone for 24 hours.  We'll obviously try a vacation again, but man, there is no place like home!

Weekend Recap: Staycation Vacation, Part 1

I'm falling behind AGAIN.  I'm in a rather blah mood tonight and I'm crabby that I work so much and don't have much time to blog, so hopefully writing this post will make me :).  I actually have a lot to be :) about because I had a wonderful 4 day weekend with my little family!  I am probably forgetting something, but I don't believe that I have had 4 consecutive days off since my maternity leave!  Waaay too long!  I seriously loved every work-free minute.  I don't know if I would be the best full-time stay at home mom, but I would certainly love to work even a little bit less.  We had big plans to go on a 4 day road trip, but after realizing that we weren't sure how Ben would do in a hotel room, we opted to only spend 1 night away.  (Hindsight: BRILLIANT move on our part.)  It was rainy on Friday, so we decided to take a trip to the children's museum.  We had never been there before and it was awesome!  I think Ben could have stayed and played all night.  

 

Ben jumped right in there with each and every thing that caught his little eye.  He is getting quite good at repeating what he sees.  He loved throwing the fake fruit down the chute!

He also loved checking out the "home town" exhibits.   Ben was quite the tour guide and made sure that we did not miss an attraction.  He was an excellent bus driver and was a pro at opening and shutting the (invisible) door--probably because we sing "Wheels On The Bus" about 10 times a day.

He had to stop at the ATM before we got too far.  Unfortunately, it was only dispensing plastic cash that day.  Good thing he found us a little free library nearby, although he preferred opening and closing the cabinet doors over the actual books.  

We made a quick stop at the fake grocery store so Benji could pick up one of his favorites--watermelon!  He was seriously trying to eat it, much to my germaphobic chagrin.  

And since I'm a total thrill seeker who loves to live life on the edge (not), we ended our trip with a ride on a Harley (without helmets) and broadcasting the news at a crime scene.  Hopefully this is the closest that Ben will ever get to both of these things. :)

These pictures do not even come close to demonstrating the amount of energy that was expended that day, and thus, no sooner did we get home did I find the boys like this:

I'm feeling as tired as these guys right now, so I'm going to make this a 2 part post.  I've been working out in the morning lately, which I had been missing terribly, but this also requires an earlier bedtime.  Hopefully I'll have time to finish writing before it's the weekend again!  Super pumped that tomorrow is already Thursday!