Birthday Celebration, Part I

Whew... I am still recovering from the last couple of weekends. We have all had a blast celebrating Doug's 40th birthday! The "official" birthday was this past Sunday, but we've been celebrating for over a week.

Two weekends ago, the kids and I took Doug downtown to Indy for an overnight adventure. I was brave and decided to board Shasta at a local doggie daycare place. She did great... Anyway, on the first weekend of the celebration, we stayed overnight at the Crowne Plaza Union Station. I reserved a room that was actually in an old coach car. The kids thought this was the most awesome thing that they had ever seen. We stayed in the Benjamin Harrison car...




Shortly after we checked in, we walked over to the Spaghetti Factory. We love to eat there and haven't done so in a very long time. I think that made the food taste even that much better... either that or it was the first "really bad" meal that I've eaten since going on my diet. We were seated in the trolley car at the restaurant and again, the kids thought that was way neat! After dinner, we walked through the Circle Center Mall. It was fun to just watch people. There were lots of "kids" dressed up for the prom. Amanda and I enjoyed seeing the beautiful dresses.

We walked back to the hotel, and I called the concierge to get information about carriage rides. About a half an hour later, we were riding around downtown in the carriage, listening to the clip, clop of big hooves. We all really enjoyed this. We left the hotel, headed north and then around the circle... then finally back to the hotel. It was a bit chilly, so we all enjoyed cuddling under the warm blankets... Our horse's name was Blue... even though he was black.





The kids had fun showing us all of their swimming skills in the hotel pool after we returned. They are both getting SO good! Amanda can basically "rocket" swim under the water all by herself. They both jump in and climb out all by themselves... Amazing.

We were all extremely tired by the time bedtime rolled around. I don't think that it took anyone much more than five minutes to be out...

In the morning, Doug walked around and snapped some pictures before the rest of us awoke. Actually, a train passing overhead woke Amanda and I up. She wanted to know if I had "heard the vibration". Cute. I think that she thought at first it was an earthquake since we've all been talking about that recently. Here are a couple of his pictures... One of a train and one of the new stadium that they are building. It is HUGE!




After checking out, we headed over to the Indianapolis Zoo. We had a great time... the crowds were very minimal. We were able to see several of the animals. We even petted some sharks! The lemur group had four babies - SO sweet! We actually didn't get to see them all, but one of them was sure putting on a show!! It has to be a boy... The kids thoroughly enjoyed playing in the play area at the zoo. You would think that this was the best thing since sliced bread... I'm not sure how much time we spent there.








We picked up Shasta on the way home. She had done great there and was totally worn out. I think that she slept the better part of the next day and a half. We were all happy to get home... and recuperate.