Back from Vacation

I think I forgot to tell everyone that we were going away - sorry. A flip flop of the last week:
Ellie and Nick's spring break started last Thursday. I went to Ellie's portfolio conference at school and she shared her work with me. We spent the late afternoon and evening at Northwestern where Ellie is taking part in a math study. Ellie was a trooper - 3 hours of testing on spring break. She was delighted to find out she got paid for the testing.
We left for St. Louis on Saturday morning. We made great time getting there. It was a favorite trip from 2 years ago and we decided to go again. We went to the science museum, the history museum, the zoo and forest park. We went to the arch, the beer tour and the children's museum. We went to the city museum and their version of millennium park. We had custard from Ted Drewes, root beer from Fitz's and gooey cake.
We packed in all we could during the days and pool time int he evenings. I am so happy that we are done with stroller days and we all walk now. The city museum was probably the favorite for the kids. It is a wild place. It is 4 floors of re-bar mazes and caves, slides and astonishing things. We spent over 6 hours there! It wore the kids out.
Today on our way back home we packed in all we could. We stopped in Springfield to hit Scheels. It is a sporting goods store but so much more. They have a huge fish tank, a kids climber and a carousel in the store plus a nice little restaurant. We found Ellie shoes, Rob new swim trunks and sunglasses and got to enjoy a dish of gelato.
We hit the Children's museum in Normal. Ellie is starting to outgrow those museums but Nick enjoyed it. We drove up 39 north to Starved Rock and Buffalo Rock. We didn't do the trails but did walk out to the river and the kids ran around.
It was a very enjoyable trip. I am looking forward to sleeping in our own bed tonight. My feet are doing pretty good - considering I forgot to pack my gym shoes and spent the week in birks. I did soak them in the hot tub every night and I think that helped. I woke up this morning with a huge broken blood vessel in my eye - it doesn't hurt but does look beastly. Tomorrow, Nick will be 5 - hard to believe. The only year in their lives that Nick will be half Ellie's age. Visualising my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree