Adventure Weekend

This weekend I definitely wanted out of the house. After months of snow and cold I finally was greeted with some nice weather that happened to coincide with a weekend. We've had our blips here and there, but I feel like our spring weather might actually be here to stay.

When we first woke up Nolan was having his usual "let's stay home and watch videos" mentality. So I told him that we were going to go "on an adventure" and he perked right up. Now, admittedly, my idea before leaving was just to get this kid some new shoes because his old ones have seen better days. That's no way to start an adventure! So as we were driving I improvised that we would go to a new park that he'd never been to before. It's close by my house, but we just haven't swung by the place. It's a new playground for a nearby elementary school.

I parked in the teacher lot in front of the building and told Nolan we were going to explore, as if I hadn't known there's a park behind the building. It was really fun because as we were exploring he just lit up and said, "It's a PLAYGROUND" and he ran towards the equipment.

We played for about an hour, and according to my fitbit, I moved quite a bit too. I was playing on the stuff almost just as much as he was. The kids today have it AWESOME.

After literally swinging on every swing in the playground (one right after another) we went for lunch, just Nolan and myself, to The Cafe. For the first time ever I tried their famous mac and cheese and it was scrumtrulescent. Nolan and I shared the order as I figured it would be quite rich. The Cafe did a great job splitting our orders and giving him fresh fruit and yogurt too... which ended up being the only thing he really had.

photos never give the food credit for how tasty it is. 

 And because I'm a pushover, we also had cake for dessert.

We didn't finish the cake at the restaurant. Thank goodness!

We did finish off our adventure by going shoe shopping. He got some Nikes and I bought some sandals for Maxwell. With my "coups" the shoes were somewhat reasonably priced. For both pairs it was less than $50.

Side note: I'm a bit of a shoe snob for my kids. They're very often better dressed than I am.

After getting home and then taking a nap with Nolan. Literally snuggling with him while I napped too. I took Maxwell to the park (a different one).

I put him on the swing and that was a mistake. But then I tried him on the slide and I think I found a winner.

The next day as a family we went to the Des Moines Zoo and decided to become members. And because of their reciprocity program, we're now able to visit the Omaha Zoo for free as well as hundreds of other zoos around the country. The membership was a duel program with the local science museum so we can also go to science museums too INCLUDING the Field Museum in Chicago which is one of my favorite museums ever.

I ended the weekend with a 6 mile bike ride where I pulled a very sleepy Nolan in the very windy weather. Needless to say, I slept well Sunday night!