Sunday: Driving Home

we didnt get up at 4:30 this time it was more like 7:30 we ate,packed up the car and were on the road by 8

I can't really remember how many times we stopped 3 or 4 

but we stopped in kentucky ... chasen was looking for turtle man and his truck with lolli dog in the back the whole time. 

we found a state park with Bison and Elk and drove through it!

chasen thought the elk were camels....i thought they looked like them too

and we saw the Bison again on our way out and this guy stopped right in front of my car.....

I moved a little closer and closer and 

all he did was stick he tongue out

a park ranger thankfully pulled in and drove really close to him and he moved

we stopped at the visitors center to play outside for a bit before getting back in the car forever.

the trip home was defiantly harder especially as i watched the temperature drop to 26.

Chasen did just fine playing his games and coloring

but dash wanted out and was being really annoying.

his favorite thing to do

yell MOM, DAD then we would say what and he would whisper and mumble. and we would say we can't understand you and he would yell our names again and the whisper gibberish....for hours on end :( 

we were home around 8:30 and pretty much just went to bed as we all had big mondays a head of us.

poor ean had to drive back the way we had just came to Illinois to start his first roof of the season

and Chasen had to get up for school!

Saturday: River Aquarium

and the last thing we did saturday after the boat ride was to head back to the river portion of the aquarium

despite the long lines i saw for tickets the aquarium was not crowded at all. there were not lines through it or huge groups of people to try and look through to see stuff!

the first and strangest thing we saw were these dragon seahorses

and this gold fish was pretty cool

this aquarium also had a tube the boys could go inside of to look at the fish 

"did you see that" and "pooky" were dashtyn's phrases of the trip!

 there was also another place to touch fish, these guys were hard and a little slimy 

 dash was scared of this alligator "it get me"

these fish were weird

Ive never seen turtles with such long necks! 

tried to get a nice pic of the boys......

afterwards we walked around downtown, it reminded me of the ped mall in iowa city but with a lot of vendors selling weird things like guns that shoot marshmallows, and we almost had to buy one, but didn't!

we were able to walk to dinner at sugars ribs and there was no wait! chasen and I enjoyed ribs with 6 different sauces at our table and ean and I again took turns walking around inside and out with dash.

we had sometime after dinner before it got dark so we went back to look out mountain because Ean promised Chasen they would climb it, I waited in the car ;) 

we were home by 8 the boys watched the goonies and we watched basketball 

 we never did have time to swim, but I dont think anybody cared!

Saturday: Aquarium & Boat Day

Saturday morning we were up early and headed to our race.

Ean ran the 5k and me and the boys ran the one mile.

I was hoping our race would start once ean got back so i could run with chasen but that was not the case we started 10 min after ean

Chasen didn't listen to me and took off leaving dash and I in his dust.

I was terrified that he would get lost or something ...

dash and i ran for a little while then he wanted to be held so i held him and jogged with him on my hip which was a bad idea but i had caught a glimpse of chasen and wanted to get a little closer....

before our race we were standing on the pier looking at the river and a family saw chasen with his race bib and said good luck #19.

well, i passed them (dash on hip) and they said "hey! we saw #19 he's still sprinting.

about that time i had to put dash down and i noticed other runners running AT us so there was a turn around point and I soon saw chasen....sprinting away in 3rd place! 

Dash and I turned around before the turn around...(call us cheaters but I was scared to have chasen alone) right as dash and I turned around ean ran by and dash started to sprint after dada but that only lasted about 200m before i had to pick him up again! I saw ean pass chasen and chasen picked up the pace a little more and was out of my eye sight again.

i met up with him at the finish line he was waiting for us and cheering on dashtyn! 

Ean crossed the finish line right before dash and I -- he got 2nd overall.

we never did get Chasen's time :( I bet it was fast though! he said he got 3rd behind a guy and a tall girl :)

afterwards they had a band all banjo's and guitars!

and dashtyn kept wanting to dance but was to shy and would just run up to the girl and poke her!

he wanted Chasen to go out there with him

"come on chasen" "peaseee"

but chasen was to shy.

one thing that was strange was the post race food, they had normal stuff but they also had fast food breakfast sandwiches from sonic and some other place...never seen that before

we waited for awards, Ean won his age group and then went back to the hotel for a quick change before heading downtown to the aquarium.

I had ordered tickets online before hand THANK GOD because the line was probably a half hour long for tickets...our line had 3 people in it! 

we got our tickets and went to eat at buffalo wild wings to watch a little basketball

then we were off to the ocean aquarium!

first thing we saw were these cool sting rays

the boys enjoyed cawing at this parrot 

there was a tank of sting rays you could pet!!!! Ive always wanted to do that! 

they were soft and slimy, chasen was excited to pet them and dash wanted to bet kept getting to scared.

 we saw a HUGE turtle

 

my favorite fish!

 I love jelly fish, and now Chasen does too! 

so freaking cool!

 and a massive crab. his aquarium had a tube the boys could stand in and feel like they were in the water! 

ok, this picture doesn't capture it but these things had what looked like electrical wires in them and they light up in every color of the rainbow...it was crazy! 

 we stopped at ben and jerrys before boarding the boat!

 

 the boat got up to 50mph and would stop really fast making huge waves like this

 chasen and dashtyn were 2 of 3 kids on the boat and did pretty good, luckily we had a group of grandparents behind us and they enjoyed the boys, the man even let chasen use his binoculars

 I took this pic of Dash and I and literally 30 sec later he was out!

he was heavy to hold

 

we got to go on deck for quite a while and use binoculars to look at birds orrr I used them to look at the huge house on the mountain. 

 

"i have an eagle eye"

after the boat ride we went back to the aquarium to see the river part