Sometimes postcards arrive when the vacationers are already back home. Sometimes this happens even when they don’t have to go through the post office! Here’s out slightly delayed postcard to you.
We had a fabulous vacation week, taking advantage of many sunny opportunities to get out of doors and have some fun. Some highlights included:
*Our “first trip”:/news/2007/vacation-week/ to the zoo.* Even though we forgot our stroller, we had a grand old time walking through the zoo, especially looking at the meercats in the Africa house. Didn’t have enough time for the petting zoo part, but oh well.
*A long afternoon walk to our local soft-serve ice cream spot.* Dairy Star is just far enough away to make you feel like you really earned your Swirly Freeze, or whatever it’s called.
*A special dinner.* Jon and I left Lucy in the capable hands of our friend “Jeanne”:http://www.houseinprogress.net/ while we scooted out to a lovely Italian dinner at “Francesca’s”:http://www.miafrancesca.com/inside/index.asp. Mmm, carpaccio.
*An outing to “IKEA”:http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/.* Yes, this is not necessarily typical vacation fare, but we seized the opportunity on a chilly day to check out some “furniture ideas”:http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10103&storeId=12&langId=-1&productId=53009, buy some finger puppets, and replace some needed shelving. Cookies and ice cream made it especially vacation-y.
*Our second trip to the zoo.* Not to be thwarted in our petting zoo quest, we decided to head back to the zoo once more. (Why not? It’s free!) This time we remembered the stroller, which our daughter attempted to climb out of during most of our visit. (But who cares? It’s vacation!) Lucy tried to blend in with the animals in her favorite coat, but I think they figured her out. The petting zoo (actually the John Deere “Farm in the Zoo”:http://www.lpzoo.org/animals/FARM/index.php) was cute, but it turned out that Lucy needs to be five years old before petting them. I guess she still looks too much like a nice little snack for it to be safe.
*A delightful breakfast treat.* Mama experimented with baking a new (and quick) homemade cinnamon roll recipe. Yum!
*A walk to our neighborhood library.* Jon and Lucy stood in the vestibule grunting “Ha!” at each other while I returned a “book”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1561583766/octothorppres-20 that was due Thursday.
*A few movie-showings.* We enjoyed a repeat viewing of “The Fellowship of the Ring”:http://imdb.com/title/tt0120737/. An old “favorite”:http://bilbosbirthday.com/ of ours, we haven’t seen this movie fully in a couple of years. Thank God for DVDs and pause functions that make it easy for us to watch this in the comfort of our own home over two evenings with plenty of bathroom breaks. Plus, “Giordano’s”:http://giordanos.com/ pizza delivered to our door! We also took in “13 Going on 30”:http://imdb.com/title/tt0337563/ , which included one of the funniest dance scenes we’ve seen in a long time. “The Fugitive”:http://imdb.com/title/tt0106977/ also made it into the viewing schedule, and it is just as good (and frighteningly suspenseful) as we remembered it. I think I closed my eyes for a good 25% of the movie, making it occasionally difficult to follow the plot. Jon was very patient with me.
*A family trip to Trader Joe’s.* As I suspected, grocery shopping is even more fun with *both* of your favorite people along.
*Surprisingly, only one trip to the park swings.* We were having such a grand old time doing other things we didn’t even have time for the park!
*A second lovely date night.* This time, Jon and I had dinner at “Ben Pao”:http://www.benpao.com/ (the lemon gingertini is really worth the price) and dessert at “Maggiano’s”:http://maggianos.com/index.htm — strawberry shortcake and profiteroles!
*An adventure with caffeine.* The dessert at Maggiano’s was accompanied by some “decaffeinated” coffee drinks, but Jon and I began to doubt the veracity of that claim when we were still wide awake and slightly hyper at 2:30 am. It is possible that we will never, ever order coffee at night again — it just isn’t worth the risk of sleeplessness, even if they *say* it is decaffeinated.
*Many, many naps for all three of us.* Sleep is good! Especially after being up half the night with a caffeine buzz.
Wish you were here!
Sounds like lots of fun! I went to Ben Pau for almond cookies just the other day. Yum. Welcome back! :)
IKEA is always vactaion fare for our family!
Sounds like you had a wonderful time and you dont even have to catch up on your laundry now.
Welcome back and thanks for sharing your time with us!
Sounds like a lot of good memories. We miss the free zoo :-(
Still up at 2:30am…sounds like a great time for mom and dad to “play” even to have several re-matches. teehee ;-P
Two other things Ann forgot to mention: we rearranged our whole bedroom (which involved moving half a wall of bookshelves in the process), and build a bunch of storage shelves in the garage. Whew!
Sounds like you guys had an awesome time. I think vacations at home are a particularly good idea when you have little kids. Since they only tend to get screwed up when traveling and sleeping somewhere other than home, a “vacation” can leave you more tired than when you left!