Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Week Ending: Labor Day Weekend Edition

On Friday at 3 pm we had just left the post office and I still wasn't sure what our field trip for the day was going to be.  Paul's shift that night started at 10 and he'd had classes that meant he got home just before 1 and by the time we got everyone out the door I was wondering what kind of field trip I could possibly come up with since I'd been pondering where we should go all week and hadn't really come up with anything.

Well that's not entirely true.  Sadie's been interested in butterflies, so I thought we might go back to the museum on campus and look at their awesome butterfly display... but then we got near campus and there were what felt like fifty million people everywhere because it was State's first game of the season and when I said "do you think it would be this busy over by the museum?" Paul looked at me like I was a crazy person.  So we headed over to the State Capital.  It was Friday and by the time we got there it was pretty deserted and I was wondering if it would even be open.  

Oh well, I thought.  At least we can walk around the outside.  First we stopped by the various statues:


Patrick was happy to be along for the ride:


Sadie rushed over to pose in front of every statue we passed:


And finally we were in front of the capital building:


It's quite impressive:


In this picture Paul is rolling his eyes about how I "asked permission" to see the capital (which might be why he doesn't get to be in the picture).  But really I was wondering if they were about to close because there was no one around!


The kids were a little overwhelmed when we walked in.  I'm glad it was basically empty (I think we saw three non-workers the entire time we were there) because Maggie was so incredibly excited that she was a little hard to control:


The inside of the dome is beautiful:


Even the door hinges were ornate:


There was just so much to look at (here we are in front of the House of Representatives):


I did not like being up this high on this thing.  In fact, imagining people being crammed on this thing during the protests made me feel a little bit sick.  The floor just didn't feel that solid to me (I'm sure it is, but yeah...).


Here's the former Supreme Court (now senate appropriations):


And the senate from the gallery:


Here Patrick is visiting Daddy's work.  Little did we know, he had a tummy ache, which is why he wasn't his normal chipper self... he wouldn't even smile at the people who said hi to him:


Here's our big guy a few hours later during his nap:


On Sunday we headed to a new park that we'd only driven by before.


I climbed up the climbing wall to go down this slide and I have to say, it's a really, really fast one!


Who says you can't play with your kids in skirts (yes, I've heard that plenty of times over the years).

This thing was a blast. It was bouncy.  I want one in my back yard.


Maggie!

She climbed this thing up to the point she was at, up and down, over and over again.  She never quite made it over the last two rungs to the top (it's always tough going over the flat part on these types of things...):


And getting their wiggles out really didn't help when it came to the end of the day... because they were still pretty wild.  


Of course there was The Rat (which did not appear to take the bait last night...):


On Monday we did school in the morning and then walked to the University's Botanical Gardens for a field trip and to meet Daddy after he was done studying.  Here we are on the three mile walk there (they are all wearing Mickey and Minnie Mouse shirts I found at Walmart for $2!):


We stopped for a break by the baseball field and the babies were all smiles:


Sadie was a good little walker:


And Patrick was happy once he had his sister's cup to hold:


Here we are almost to the gardens:


She danced the last few steps there (and then my camera battery ran out!):


The garden is absolutely beautiful.  There are so many plants.  Sadie's favorite was the Madagascar Periwinkle.  We'll definitely be making return trips (especially when we get to the school to early to meet Paul and need to use up a little bit of extra time!):


For more pictures from our field trip (there were just too many to add here) visit the blog facebook page to see the entire album.  For more Week Ending visit Re-Inventing Mother!  I hope you had a great Labor Day Weekend!

1 comment:

  1. You're so lucky to have so many nice places to go on field trips and parks to play in. When we homeschooled(16 years!) we had nothing. Our town is fairly big but you have to drive at least 2 hours to see anything. Luckily we got to go on many nice business trips around the country with Dad.
    Love the super hero boots. lol
    Donna

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