Thursday, August 12, 2010

Horses

Today, we got the opportunity to ride horses with some friends in MOPS. The kids had a wonderful time other than it being really hot! Ethan was so good and didn't cry at all! I was really surprised because he usually doesn't like being hot! Look at my big girl! She was so brave! At first she was a little scared, but after petting the horse, she didn't want to get off! Dylan had a great time, too! He said he didn't want to ride it at first, but he had a blast when he got on the horse! We had a wonderful time with our friends, thanks again!

Wisconsin Part 2

For Saturday and Sunday, we spent time with my cousin, Dale, and his family. They were so hospitable and showed us around town and even fed us dinner. We had a wonderful time exploring the Madison Zoo, which by the way is free. (Indy Zoo if you would like to take a hint!) It was really nice and the weather was beautiful! The zoo is right off of the lake, so there was a cool breeze all day!
Dylan, Catie, and Lauren took a break in this cool bench! I don't think I've ever been that close to a rhino before!Owen and Lauren shared the stroller. It was cute!After naps at their house, we went to see Dale's work. He works for Epic Software and his office/ campus is AMAZING! I've never seen anything like it in my life! They have themed conference rooms and buildings and they are awesome! I wouldn't mind working somewhere like that everyday! Absolutely everything in the room goes along with the theme. The coasters, the trash can, the cabinets, the lighting, the chairs, even the ceiling! They had an Indiana Jones hallway that plays music when you enter, Grand Central Station, an airplane hanger, a circus room, a log cabin room, an arctic room, and so many more that I can't even remember! They also have themes for the entire buildings. My cousin works in the Wild West, so everything is western. Even the elevators and bathrooms go along with the theme! In his building, the bathrooms doors were swinging doors like they use to get into an old saloon. It was better than some museums that I have been to! If every company made their employees feel like they do at Epic, there would be a ton of happy employees!
Here is a lobby when you enter one of the buildings, they have 8 as of now! This was in the log cabin conference room.The arctic room.
The tree house that is a conference room, too! They have internet access and everything out there to have a conference! The subway in the New York building! They have the subway as the ground level, the first floor is downtown, and the second floor is the skyscrapers. The airplane hanger room.We had such a great time and I couldn't believe how amazing this campus was! So awesome! Thank for showing us a great time and around your work!


Monday, August 9, 2010

Wisconsin Dells Part 1

For Christmas last year, my parents wanted to take the whole family on a vacation to the Wisconsin Dells and to an indoor water park. We went this past week to do both! It was so much fun! We stayed at the Wilderness Resort and it had 7 water parks! 4 were outside, and 3 were indoors. Even though it was nice outside, we mainly opted for the indoor ones with the little munchkins. I didn't want them to get overheated or too much sun! We had a blast and the kids slept very well the first 2 nights! They were absolutely exhausted!Here is one of the indoor parks. This is just part of the play area for kids. They also had water slides that went out the back in tunnels and a smaller play area for little kids.
Here is the little kid part. They loved the water slides!Thanks to my mom, we got a picture of our family! Dylan went down this slide a ton! It was just his size!Ethan even had fun in the little bouncy swings! His feet would bounce in the water!Lauren did everything she could to stay awake! She couldn't miss anything! She would use grandma or grandpa as an excuse to stay awake. She definitely got spoiled while on vacation!We would take turns riding on the big slides. This one was pitch black the entire way! We also rode on the Tornado and the Black Hole. I got a bruise on my bum from the Tornado, but it was awesome! You go into this huge spiral and go all the way up the sides of the tube. The Black Hole was not quite as good and was compared to a toilet bowl, so I'm told. I was too sore to ride that one, but everyone said it was pretty good!
Ethan would just sleep anywhere! He is such a good baby! Especially since his first tooth broke through on Friday! That explains all of the drooling!Dylan being mischievous!Dylan really wanted to do the bumper boats, so grandma gave in and let him ride with dad!He got so tired that he just sat in the chair and fell asleep! Too cute! They had amazing decor in the parks. This one even had bananas growing on the tree!
They also had this really cool indoor playland that was 4 stories high!My mom and I took Dylan and Lauren to play in it! It was really neat! You could shoot balls (soft foam) from the upper stories at people below. It also had all kinds of obstacles to get around. Not made for adults, but the kids had a wonderful time!Dylan was showing his funny face in this one! Going down a slide.After we were done with the water parks, we went on a DUCK tour. It was so awesome! They are very old machines that they used in wars that go on land and water. It was amazing to see the beautiful land and water and to get the opportunity to ride on the Duck. Lauren and Ethan loved it so much that they fell asleep!
We drove through this gorge!And went for a ride on the lake!We had such a wonderful time and this was just the first 2 days! Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon!

Monday, August 2, 2010

Fun weekend

This past weekend we had some fun times. Friday night was my nephew's birthday party at the Indiana Downs Horse race track. Dylan was so excited to see all the horses. I took some pictures on my phone, because I forgot my camera, but I don't know how to add them right now. I'll have to have Ricky help me with that later! We had a really good time! For the party, the birthday boy, Brayden, had a race named after him. They took us to the winner's circle to watch the race and then to get a picture with the horse that won his race. Then we got to go to the announcer's box and see what he does. It was really interesting and we had a good time! They were racing horses with the little carts behind them, so it was different than I had seen before. After the party, grandma took all 3 boys for a sleepover. They had a blast and got along really well!

Before we left for Indy on Saturday morning, Lauren was being really cute and posing, so I got a few great shots of her. (Who needs the runway when you are this cute?)Saturday, we went to the Children's Museum in Indy. We have a year pass, so we figured we should take advantage of it and enjoy the museum. My mom brought the boys there to meet us. It was a very busy, but fun day! We had 3 adults and 5 kids! We had a great time and didn't even get to see everything! We started off in the Rock and Roll exhibit. The kids had fun dressing up and riding the motorcycle.Then, we headed over to the Barbie exhibit. The boys weren't too thrilled to go in there, but we needed to see it before it's gone. Lauren had a blast! She loved all the pink.
Dylan and Landen had a good time for a little while! The boys wanted to sit in the race car, so we waited in line for each of them to have a turn.

We then headed over to the playscape. They all had a really good time in there. Dylan went fishing.
The boys drove the train cars.Ethan was even happy (after he got some mommy's milk)!Lauren loved the sand!And daddy had fun watching it all happen!Sunday morning, Lauren woke up not feeling so well. She had a low grade fever and was coughing. I don't know where it came from, but she's the only one with it. Hopefully she will get over it soon and not pass it to anyone else since we are going on vacation on Thursday!