Hometown Tourists

We had plans to be gone this weekend. We changed our minds last minute and decided to spend the weekend hanging out with the kids at home. We've been taking it easy, doing a few put-off-too-long projects and just generally enjoying ourselves.

Part of the reason for our change of plans was my little man's ongoing recovery from eye surgery on Wednesday. He's been a trooper from the start. He was not allowed to eat for almost 24 hours and I heard not one word of complaining. We're both looking forward to seeing is gorgeous blue eyes straightened and working the way they should.

The kids had off school several days this week for our local fair. I think they call it "teacher in service" days but we all know.....

The hubs took off on Friday too so we're soaking up a 3 day weekend. We've slept in.....gorged on tasty hot breakfasts.....sometimes closer to what some of us are used to eating lunch. We've tackled outside clean up projects, like cleaning screens, washing down porches and burning brush. We even got BOTH    bathrooms cleaned, ON THE SAME DAY.

With all that accomplished we decided a day off was in order. The kids earned free tickets to a local tourist attraction from the library's summer reading program. We donned our scarves and jackets and set out with camera ready. It was a beautiful fall day and not much makes little boys happier than trains.

Turns out little girls kinda like trains too.

We packed a picnic lunch to enjoy mid-voyage. (The trip is all of 45 minutes, round trip.)

We got a big kick out of the good ol' fashioned playground. My children barely recognized the see-saws and merry-go-round. Whose idea was it to take all the cool stuff off the school playgrounds anyway?

The big boy was fascinated with the information on the back of his ticket.

  **All men and boys are responsible to help shovel snow if needed.

  **Keep all heads, arms and belongings inside the train in case of Indian attacks.

 The advantage to being a "local tourist" is knowing that just down the street from the train rides there is the best little old fashioned ice cream shop. 20 plus flavors of hand-dipped ice cream on homemade waffle cones. Mmm. Mmm.

 

 Today's flavor of choice....candy corn....chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream with actual candy corn pieces in it. My children thought they had won the lottery....chocolate mocha for me thank you!

And a cup of steamy Starbucks for the road home, just because. The other advantage to being hometown tourists is being able to take happy, sleepy children home and tuck them in there own beds.
Early.

But it's Monday morning now. Back to the races......no more getting up at the 'crack of 8:00'  :)

Hope your week is off to a happy start!