"Staycation"

I really wanted to get away this last weekend. I thought camping would be fun since we haven't been all summer but with the weather being unpredictable thought better of it. It is not fun being stuck in a too small camper when it's pouring outside. Then we thought maybe it would be fun to go check out Tucson, we haven't been since it was just the 2 oldest boys. After deciding I really didn't want to spend too much, it is getting to be ridiculously expensive for our size family just to go to a simple museum or anything that costs an admission. Normally we just do it and don't think about it but we did already go on vacation this year so I guess I was just being cheap! I really didn't want to just sit around the house, I have been craving some good family time since Randy has been putting in alot of hours lately. It took me a few days but I finally came up with a plan to stay in town and have some fun around here, our family staycation. We had a full weekend planned of great activities. Because this will be a really long post I will break it up into days. I would've added pictures but as soon as I downloaded all my pictures to my laptop it decided to crash and they are stuck there somewhere in laptop heaven until Randy can find them. I will have to add them later because I took a ton!

Day One:
We started off Friday night riding the light rail to downtown Phoenix, we have never ridden before so it was a fun experience. We didn't realize how fast the thing takes off! If you're not holding on you will go flying. Our destination was the Phoenix Children's Museum. The museum is free the first Friday of every month, so basically the entire population of Phoenix was there! We had to wait about an hour for our turn to go in but they had activities for the kids to do so it wasn't too bad. Once our number was called we made our way inside only for the fire alarm to go off and everyone had to evacuate! We finally got to go inside and play and I think the kids had alot of fun. We will definitely go back when it is not so crowded so we can really enjoy it. The stop for the light rail is about 1/2 mile away, I didn't think that would be too bad of a walk until it was 10pm and we had to walk back when were all tired and little legs were giving out! Lyndi stayed awake all night, I thought for sure she would sleep on the way home but she was going strong until she was in her own bed. So far our weekend is off to a great start!

Day Two:
I scored a free bowling pass by signing up for the AMF e club so Saturday afternoon we headed out to go bowling. We've only taken the kids one other time so everyone was excited. It's always nerve racking for me to get everyone organized and ready but it went well. We had the bumpers up for the kids but I must admit they helped Randy and I too! It was so fun to watch the little kids go up there and try to throw the heavy ball down the lane, one time the poor ball only made it about halfway down and stopped! Logan did his little happy dance every time he knocked the pins over and poor Lyndi was pretty much stuck in her stroller the whole time but she is patient and puts up with us. Ryan was leading his 2 older brothers for the last few frames and you could just see the anticipation on his face as he was hoping he would beat them. Everyone had fun and we were starving by the time we were done so we headed down to Gilbert to eat at Joe's Farm Grill with the Baileys. I have only heard great things about this place so we were really excited to try something new. The food was okay but we really weren't impressed. We started off sitting inside but quickly discovered that with all our kids the noise echoing off the old block walls was just too much so we moved our group outside. I'm sure the people sitting next to us were grateful too! I doubt we will go back but it was fun to get together and we had a good time.

Day Three:
Today was Sunday so after going to church I planned for us to take a picnic lunch up to our mistletoe spot, a very secret undisclosed location! It was a little cooler there, though not much. I don't think the kids enjoyed the idea of a picnic as much as I did, all I heard was I'm bored and Kaela was deathly afraid of some imaginary bugs that the rest of us weren't bothered by. After we ate the kids played catch and Randy built a tree swing with some rope that we brought along. After a couple of hours we were ready to head home, we had steaks marinating at home waiting for us!

Day Four:
The big day! I think the kids were looking forward to this day the most out of everything. All summer we had planned to go to Amazing Jake's but never made it. I figured since most of the stuff we did cost very little it was okay to splurge a little. It helped that they had a great online deal for Monday that included unlimited rides, video games, and pizza buffet for one price. We got there first thing and played all day, by the time Randy & were ready to go and Darrin had to be at practice we had already been there 6 hours! Kyle, Ryan & Kaela were nowhere near ready to be done so we agreed that it would be okay if they stayed and played a little while longer so we left them there and came home and put the little ones to bed. Randy headed back down a few hours later and they still wanted to play. He's a softy so they all played until they were kicked out! I guess they got their money's worth.

It really was a fun weekend, it's great to make the time to spend with each other. I look at the kids and see how fast they are growing up and I want to squeeze in as much with them as I can. I hope that they will look back at these times with their family and have good memories and know that we at least tried!