It's funny because I went to visit my friend Katie and her new baby Benjamin this week while the boys were at Miss Jeanne's. Ben snoozed away while Katie and I were able to enjoy a nice long lunch on the roof patio of a restaurant. On our walk back to Katie's, I was commenting on how well behaved Ben was and she said, well whenever I make a plan, it doesn't work out, but if I just do something spontaneously, everything seems to work out ok. And that really is how I felt about this week. All the spontaneous things we did worked out great, and everything I planned for never even happened!
The boys didn't get sick until Friday, so we were able to enjoy most of the week! I didn't really get around to any of our dinosaur activities, so this week is now dinosaur week.
Gavin has camp with his best buddy Olivia on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They did camp together last year and really enjoyed it, so we signed up again this year. To be honest, this year's camp isn't nearly as good (they are in a different section of camp now that they're older). So when Olivia's mom texted me Wednesday night and asked if we wanted to ditch camp with them the next day, I was all for it (I haven't ditched anything since junior year English, when my friend Puneet and I ditched last period to get ice cream at McDonald's, only to come back after school because he was on the tennis team and I was on the track team. Such rebels!)
So we ditched camp for a train adventure. This is one of the things we didn't get to during train week because of another bought with the stomach flu! We took the Metra down to the Choo Choo restaurant in Des Plaines. We don't live near the Metra line that runs to Des Plaines, so we drove to the Arlington Race Track Metra station. That was an adventure in and of itself. We got stuck behind a freight train on our way down there, so we were already running short on time, and then we couldn't find anywhere to park. So we ended up parking at the race track and literally running to the station to catch the train (we ended up making it because the train was running late due to the Taste anyways!). Gavin did a great job of hustling to make the train, and I practically had an asthma attack running with a 30 pound Declan on my hip! After that our adventure went pretty smoothly.
Before we went on our train adventure, we always have fun in the basement. Today's game was to make the couch cushions into the ocean and a plank, with the couch being the pirate ship. Here Dec is walking the plank!
Gavin as a Groucho Marx pirate.
Mommy joins in on the pirate fun. Our favorite pirate phrases are "Avast ye mateys" (although Dec says Ablast ye mateys) and "oh coconuts!"
Just after our brisk jog to the race track Metra station. This is Gav and his best buddy Olivia waiting for the train.
The kids have caught sight of the train's lights way down the track. They were jumping up and down with excitement. They all did a good job of listening to the announcements as well.
We learned at the Illinois Railway Museum that Dec is a little skittish on trains, so this is him riding on my lap. He loved it so long as he was sitting with me. He did gain some courage on the return trip and walked up and down the aisle a bit.
Ethan, Olivia and Gavin riding the rails. They liked that we could switch the seats so that we were facing each other.
The kids wanted to take a silly face picture too :)
At the Choo Choo restaurant. We sat up at the counter, where an electric train runs around a track, bringing people their orders.
Gav and Liv enjoying their toy train ride. Clearly not as cool as the real thing.
I love how Dec is just sitting back with his arm around Ethan, enjoying the ride.
Our grilled cheeses arriving via train!
After eating lunch, all the kids got another special delivery, a cupcake with a train whistle on top! I'm not sure if the kids liked the cupcake or the whistle better, but we had to listen to those whistles until the moms wisely said that once the Metra train came back, the moms had to hold onto the whistles so that they wouldn't get lost ;)
Group shot in front of the restaurant. As you can see, all the kiddos are whistling away!
Waiting for our trip back to the race track.
We got to sit up top on our way back home. All the kids were pretty excited about this (I'll be honest, even I like sitting up top, there is something fun about it). Here Gav and Liv were enjoying the single seats near each other but away from the little guys.
The stomach flu ravaged our house the next day, and we were pretty much on lockdown all weekend. On Monday of this week we headed to the "haircut" mall for, appropriately enough, haircuts, lunch (no McDonalds because sick tummies don't like burgers, the kids weren't too happy with me about that) and some play time at Yu Kids Island. You can tell the kids are still on the mend because they tired out easily here and were ready to go home after an hour. That could also be because there was a day camp with about 12 boys aged 7-8 there at the same time, and some of them were less than well behaved, and that always annoys my kids (Gavin came up to me multiple times to report the "bad" things the kids were doing, time to have the tattle tale talk I guess!)
Anywho, here is Dec on a new inflatable thingy they have there. It's like a see-saw with bubbles on either end that slowly inflate and deflate.
The balloon room is still Gav and Dec's favorite at this place, but it's practically impossible to get a good pic in there with balloons flying everywhere. I like this one of Gavin behind the red balloon. I forgot how fun it is as a kid to look through a balloon and the whole world is that color.
Bouncin'
Dec loves to climb this carousel type thing.
Gav was pretty worn down at this point, so I think he was honestly just looking for a place to lay down!
