Road Trip

Time to talk about the road trip! We took two days to drive there and two days to drive back because I thought that was the more reasonable and safe method for me to drive them there. We spent almost two weeks with my grandma and mom.

This was a trip just me and the boys. Erik is still working in another state but will be back soon.

One thing I learned while on the trip is that my boys are definitely not interested in dolls and still not that interested in Little People. I have bought things for them over the years and given them opportunities to play with these things, and they were never a big success. At Grandma's house, they were given their choice of new (to them; very familiar to me) toys to play with. They adored and adopted stuffed animals, they drew up a storm on the over-sized drawing pad, they loved the slip 'n slide, Nick obsessed over the little box of shells, and they really liked a ball-drop-and-spin toy toy my grandma bought for them at a garage sale. It is a baby toy, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Peek-A-Rounds-Jungle-Friends-Treehouse/dp/B0002YDQ1Y/ref=sr_1_8?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1341789737&sr=1-8&keywords=ball+drop+spin+toy

Neither of them touched the dolls or the piles of doll outfits. I have to say Grandma Lucy spent a lot of time dressing them up, but she did not have a very interested audience. :) The Little People and Little People bus were popular at first, but only for a day or two.

And they can't get enough of zoos and aquariums. And they will both ride little kid amusement park rides. And they are now perfect angels on outings. They could handle a longer day and more exciting outings than their grandma and great-grandma without problem. I brought the stroller to the zoo but didn't even have to push my purse in it when Nick got tired of it. He pushed it for me! I am about to retire as a parent, folks!

Just kidding. I will have to be forced into retirement for this gig.

One of the major highlights for me was visiting the book shop that my family used to visit after every Christmas to spend our Christmas gift certificates. It's a great children's book shop in downtown St. Paul. When you drive there, you get to see the old Victorian houses and even the governor's mansion. This was one of my favorite family traditions. It meant so much to me to go there and allow the boys to each pick out something (plus they got some major book treats from their great-grandma, and I got a major book treat from my mom!) and to see how they loved browsing and reading for a long time.

Another highlight was going to Fort Snelling National Cemetery to see my grandpa's grave in person. Grandma took me and we looked and prayed and talked and I cried a little. She showed me where the ceremony had taken place, where they did the 21-gun salute. I noticed that very few of the other headstones showed more than one war. Grandpa's had the Korean war and World War II.

Yet another highlight was seeing two close friends I've had since middle school.

Picture time!

At our first rest area

I had to convince them to run and jump around.

Like magic, we are in Minnesota at Great-Grandma's house!

One of my best friends's husband letting Nick have some wrestling time - I am leaving out all the pictures of playing with their kids in case she doesn't want her kids' pictures on the Internet. Their kids are 9, 7, and 5, and they were wonderful playmates for my guys. Nothing better than a close friendship that can be picked up at a moment's notice no matter how often you have talked in between.

At the Minnesota Zoo, which is a really fantastic and really expensive zoo - Thanks, Great-Grandma!

The animatronic dinosaur exhibit was at MN Zoo

It was hard getting them past the entrance, where a raptor was squirting water

Mall of America carousel

Me and another close friend from high school

Birthday dinner on the porch

Pancake breakfast on the porch

Nick's second celebration of his third birthday

Erik's coworker gave Xander a Lego Mindstorm set!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Erik came to see us in MN and they worked hours on Mindstorm

RoboGator

This thing is awesome; it can sense when an object is near and shoot little balls at it, among other things (that is, after Erik and Xander programmed it)

Oh yeah, we're back at the zoo with the dinosaurs

Nick still says, "Ee have a great day at da zoon with the dinosaurs!"

I didn't even have to push the stroller

When Erik came, we went to the Mall of America for the aquarium. We were all so delighted to have him there.

Manta rays and sting rays and sharks (?)

The really blurry part is Nick - he loved these jellyfish in tanks (we weren't supposed to use flash photography)

Bumper cars for the first time ever

So Xander has outgrown this type of thing...

We did so much more than this. What a great trip it was. Everything, including the drives, went smoothly.