Wow - a I feel "normal" day

Rob and I were both too excited to sleep last night - we stayed up and watched an old John Cusack movie from the 1980s. Ellie woke up around 7:20AM and went downstairs - Nick and I slept in until 8:00AM. We had plans to spend the day with Jo and Tony and they met us at our house at 9:00AM. We headed off to Pirate's Cove in Elk Grove Village - an amusement park for the toddlers and younger kids. We were a bit surprised to see a line when we arrived as they opened but soon found out it was Superhero Day - not that that meant anything other than getting a squeezy superhero as we purchased our tickets. The kids had a ball between the train ride and the super slide. I packed a picnic lunch and we ate by the waterfall. The kids probably could have stayed all day but the mosquitoes were rampant, the park was super crowded and it was getting hot.
We went to Woodfield to cool off in some air conditioning and Jo informed me she doesn't get out to the mall very often and wanted to hit about half a dozen stores. The kids loved walking by Rainforest Cafe and seeing the "animals" in action. We had some ice cream to cool off and decide what other stores we might want to hit. We decided to treat the kids and we went to Build a Bear Workshop - Ellie has been before but this was Nick and Tony's first time. Ellie picked out a bear and Nick and Tony both got puppies - I love that they have the allergy/asthma choices. The boys really enjoyed filling their puppies, grooming them and then getting to love them. Ellie adopted Gabriella, Tony adopted Ponyo and Nick - well Nick adopted Doggie Beef (originally is was Loompa Doompa - I'm sure he meant Oompa Loompa). We finished up with a trip inside the gift shop at Rainforest to see the fish being fed - and the kids were all very excited to see Dorie the fish from Finding Nemo.
Jo and I were sure the kids would all sleep on our ride home but no such luck - Tony was the only one who gave in. We stopped by a garage sale that Jo and I went to last year and really lucked out on boys clothing but there were no boys to be found today - oh well. Jo dropped us back at home and the kids quickly put on their swimsuits and headed out to the sprinkler. They played until the mosquitoes were, once again, eating us alive. We came in and got re-dressed and decided to use a couple more library reading club coupons - we went to get pizza for dinner and the kids both got their own personal pizza. After dinner we used their ice cream coupon and hit the Chocolate Shoppe - yummy!
We got home and had a quick bath time before getting the kids to bed a bit early. It was as close to a normal day as I have had in a long time but I have to say my feet are killing me. I am looking forward to the weekend - we have just a few plans and they all involve having fun. Visualising my healthy body (I think this visualising stuff is really working), Tree