to Terre Haute and back

On Friday, we packed up the car, again, and drove to Terre Haute, Indiana. I had never been there before. Guess what, it's like practically driving to the Illinois border. We were going there because Andy was participating in a bicycle ride on Saturday called the RAIN ride. It's a 160 mile, 1 day bike ride across the state of Indiana. That's a separate post. So we head to Terre Haute and go to our hotel which, for the price, is not near as nice as the one we stayed in near Chicago. It's our fault, by the time we booked, most of the nicer places were taken. (We will not make the same mistake next time!) We were disappointed to learn there was no pool at this hotel (and I was slightly ticked that I had packed the swimsuits and accessories for nothing). Luckily, the local attractions guide had a picture of a park that looked cool, so we decided to try that after dinner. Our dinner plans consisted of going to the mall and looking for a restaurant. We lucked out. Beside the food court, there was an actual sit-down place to eat called Garfield's. I thought it would be fun to actually have a not-fast-food meal on the road and Andy could have something filling to eat before his ride. The food was great! The kids were pretty good and 2 other people having dinner there complemented the kids on their behavior. That felt pretty good. At the mall, they had a play area with large breakfast foods to climb on-a little wierd, I know. The boys loved it and we had to tear them away so we could eat.



After dinner, we went to Deming Park. They had the coolest playground there! It is handicap accessable and there was play area for the little kids and bigger ones. This park also has a miniature train that kids can ride. That was closed by the time we got there.
Where were all the kids? Man, if we lived there, we would be at that park a lot! I guess it was a little hot out for some people. Our kids didn't seem to mind until we had to get back into the car. Then, it was all about the whining.

Ewan said that this park was his favorite park! He even made up a song (to the tune of Jesus Loves Me): Jesus loves me, I love this park, I love this park, I love this park (pretty creative, I know)

After the park, we went back to hotel. It was tougher getting Liam to go to sleep since everyone else was still up in the room when we tried to lay Liam down in his little tent. Andy ended up taking Liam with him to Walmart to get a pair of sunglasses while I settled the rest of the boys in bed. The tactic worked, when Andy got back, Liam laid down with only a little bit of fussing. The boys watched a little more of Toy Story and everyone-adults included-were asleep by 9:30!

(I guess in the middle of the night, Cale yelled out in his sleep "What did you say?". Andy thought that was pretty funny. He said that all the boys were talking in their sleep last night. Marcus and Ewan were mumbling and Liam was giggling. Poor Andy got crowded out of bed and ended up sleeping across the foot of the bed that Marcus and Ewan were sharing. Not a very comfortable sleeping arrangement, but he made do!)