Graduation and the frenzy of May were behind us. Memorial Day stretched before use like a beautiful oasis of nothingness. So we decided to celebrate the first day of summer!

*********
So on a whim, I poked in some cheap numbers into priceline for a 4-star hotel in Indy. It was Indy 500 weekend.....fancy hotel downtown....no way they'd accept my meager bid. But they did! So we threw some clothes together and headed out.

*********

For Christmas, someone gave our kids a family pass to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. It is, by the way, the most amazing children's museum in the world that we know of. It's cool having a pass, becuase we feel like we can go and have some fun for a couple of hours without having to knock ourselves out for 7 hours trying to get our money's worth for the day. We hit some of our favorite spots:
Free carousel rides!!!!

Decisions, decisions in PLAYSCAPES!

Serving mommy and daddy ice cream....

Next (after a cheap lunch via the Wendy's drive-through) we met Mom Fry, Debbie and Alex at the Imax and saw Dolphins and Whales. It really was good, but a bit slow-moving and very redundant. The hundreds and hundreds of close-up shots of the bellys and sides of whales, combined with the narrator's "I'm-trying-to-sound-mysterious-and-provocative" voice was almost enough to put you to sleep. But it was fun to be together


And then the canal walk. It is a quiet, beautiful and peaceful place.

Everyone within an hour's drive should visit Indy and see the canal walk at night. Very romantic. Not so romantic, exactly, with this crew. But definately one of our very favorite places.

To save on the outrageous "fancy hotel" parking costs, we left our car parked in the garage by the canal walk and walked the couple of blocks to the hotel. The hotel (Downtown Marriot) turned out to be fabulous. Enjoying the piles of fluffy pillows: It was a great combination of modern elegance

Nothing like chillin' in the windowsill in your diaper, ya know.


Cereal & milk, cartoons, and a cool pull-out table. (You'd think these poor kids had never seen cartoons before....)

Beautiful view of the sunset


The city at eventide

And the lights of night

We enjoyed hanging out at the hotel. Then...as dark began to fall, we packed the kids up in the triple stroller and went out to paint the town. It was one of those priceless evenings when the kids were tired, but relaxed. Not squabbling and whining. We were just a couple blocks from just about everything Indy has to offer. We enjoyed the beautiful evening and the city lights at the circle. Then we had a lovely dinner at Buca di Beppos. David and I shared a plate of "Quattro al Forno" (A sampling of: Cheese Manicotti, Chicken Cannelloni, Stuffed Shells and Ravioli.) We got the sleepy kids a 1/2 pound Italian meatball to share. We were amazed when Caiden tried to finish off the meatball single-handedly and the girls scooped into our shared plate. (I fear our days of one 6-piece nugget shared between 3 kids are just about over.)


After a quiet walk back to the hotel we found that the maid had slipped in and left the extra blanket and pillow we requested. Everyone slept like babies.

The next morning we walked around White River State park, checked out the area by the river where the free outdoor summer concerts will be and walked over to the zoo.

Then it was back home to Frankfort for an FCA staff lunch and the beginning of teacher work week. The hotel was a bit of a splurge. But it was every bit worth it.

**********************************************
Priceline bid on hotel: $50.00

Cost of gas to get to Indy: $???!!!

24 hours of memories with our little family: Priceless

SHARE

Add your comment

© This Beautiful Grace · THEME BY WATDESIGNEXPRESS