Life has been quite a wild roller coaster these last few months. With getting the gerbils, family life, preparing for sponsoring a good friend through Great Banquet, the loss of a child to a church friend, training for the OneAmerica Indy 500 Mini Marathon, and the ongoing fight to be able to use Rei in the marathon.
Wow, where to start...
Guess I'll do a quick run down over the past few months and omit most of the pictures to try to catch up.
After Christmas- Hubby had the week off between Christmas and New Year's Eve. We tried to spend the time doing stuff with the kids and together as a family. We decided to go to the annual auto show to look at what was out there and the kids had fun getting in and out of all the cars and the plan was to do dinner and then go to the Christmas at the Zoo. However as it worked out, we were done with the auto show by 3pm and still had a few hours to kill before it was dark enough to enjoy the zoo, so we took advantage of our Children's Museum membership and went there next and saw the Barbie Exhibit and then had Subway for dinner before heading to the Zoo.
Auto show:
This wasn't meant to be a video but it's the best shot of the kids all hanging out in the VW convertible beetle- KT in the drivers seat, MD up front with her, and AC in the back being ornery and leaning over the side of the care with that mischievous grin.
Daddy and the kids checking out the Indy Race Car on display made so people could sit in it- MD in the driver's seat of this one:
Hubby in his dream car- the Sebring convertible:
Off to the Children's Museum- Fun at the Barbie exhibit
MD on the pink barbie phone at the designer studio, listening to barbie talk to her:
Next up- AC listening to Barbie:
All three kids playing Barbies in the interior of a barbie house in the play area:
After playing in the Barbie area, we went to the Jolly Days area to Santa's cottage and the kids got to pretend play at baking and all kinds of fun stuff.
MD overlooking a pan of muffins she was about to serve to Daddy and I:
And last but not least for the museum, is AC in the race car:
Time quickly passed and it came time for the Museum to close at 5pm, so we made our way up to the top floor to join in the closing parade with the dinosaur to march out in grand procession, however AC was wailing in protest as he didn't want to do this and finally settled down once we got going.
We then went to subway for dinner on the IUPUI campus and headed on over to the Indianapolis Zoo. We started out going around the waters area and the walrus said "Hello" to us by hanging out close to the glass in the viewing area:
The lights throughout the zoo were pretty amazing, with various colors around what seemed to be every tree and light ropes in the shape of all different types of wildlife:
We then went to Santa's village where the kids each got to make noisemakers out of toilet paper tubes and wrapping paper.
And my favorite part was that the kids got to write thank you notes to Santa for their Christmas gifts and put them in the mailbox for Santa- as you see AC putting in his letter here, thanking Santa for the gerbils.
The area that is normally a water sprinkler area in the summer was done up with some amazing lights synced to music, so here is a video of this:
And last but not least, we went over to the White River Gardens atrium where they had it set up with all types of Christmas trees and had a really fun scavenger hunt that the kids absolutely had a blast doing! We had to find various critters throughout the trees and all, plus there were more lights synced to music. :)
Here are the kids and I with Rei leaning against the large center piece rock in the middle of the place.
So of course by this point, it was very late and everyone was TIRED. We all had a great time together, lots of fun, and the kids even said they were ready to go to bed. LOL!
We spent our New Year's Eve over at good friends, John and Karen's place in the company of church friends and everyone ate good, played games and then toasted each other in ringing in the new year.
Then for New Year's Day, several of us regrouped and headed to the Indiana State Fairgrounds to the Pepsi Coliseum and the kids got their first try at ice skating. Rei and I got to sit on the sidelines, taking pictures, watching all the coats & personal effects, and giggling while we didn't take the falls and have the sore rear ends as some did. LOL!
I was very impressed with all of the kids though, they all had a really good time and got quite good at making their way around the rink with the help of the adults. It was quite nice too that having gone as a group, the adults were able to switch off on handling the little ones and skating with them around the rink.
Unfortunately since everyone was moving fairly quickly and the camera had to take pictures through the hockey rink glass, it was hard to get good pictures of everyone, but there are a few.
The H's with their little one in between them:
Hubby with MD and AC:
Karen with Miss J posing through the glass at me:
After about an hour and a half, AC decided he was done for the night and came up to sit with Rei and I, and had fun watching everyone and taking some pictures too. Here he is and Rei in front of him watching what he is doing. :)
Shortly after this, we wrapped things up and headed home, with some tired, but happy kids and another great time together as a family. :)
