Our weekend in Raleigh.......

We had a great time in Raleigh. It was nice just to get away for a bit. We arrived in Raleigh about 3pm Sat afternoon. After checking into our hotel, we went to a sail and power boat show. The kids had lots of fun climbing in and out of the boats. Jeremy enjoyed looking at all the new options and debating with me the merits of living onboard after the kids are grown. I'm not sold on the idea though I'm certain you couldn't beat the view! After the boat show, we had dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. We had seen an Olive Garden, but it was so packed we couldn't even get INTO the parking lot. I was so bummed! For those of you who don't know, the area where we live hasn't exactly caught up with the rest of the nation. There is not an Olive Garden here and I haven't eaten there since 2004. Dinner was good, but I couldn't help but feel a bit cheated knowing that just across the street people were having that yummy salad and those delicious breadsticks! After dinner, we took the kids back to the hotel to swim. That was a disaster, though I'm able to laugh about it now. You could smell the chlorine as soon as you stepped off the elevator on the floor that the pool was on. Do you think that would stop 3 kids who haven't swam in 5 months? No way! Jeremy and I parted ways, he in the hot tub, me in the pool to watch whichever of our children were in our area at the time. Amelia apparently forgot how to swim. She ran at the pool with typical "Amelia" gusto. She then proceeded to sink. After that she was a bit more cautious and mostly stayed on the side. We were there probably 20-30 minutes when Abby and Marshall started to cough. There were a few other kids there who had also begun to cough so we decided that it was time to call it quits. Imagine our surprise when Jeremy stood up to get out of the hot tub and his formerly navy blue and white swim trunks were now light gray and a shade of see through that is not for the G rated crowd! We checked out of that hotel on Sunday in favor of one whose swimming pool was less likely to cause cancer in lab rats.
We went to the Museum of Science on Sunday. The dinosaurs were a huge hit with the kids. We even got to touch a triceratops horn. Having been a huge dinosaur fan as a child, I was actually pretty excited. Another fun part of the museum was this little room where you can find lots of neat stuff to do. It is mostly geared for the preschool/early grade school crowd, but we all enjoyed it. Who else lets a 2 year old play with a real microscope and slides? They had cute little animal costumes and a bunch of bins full of different science themes. After the museum, we grabbed some dinner and swam the rest of the evening.
Monday morning, we went to Marble's Kids Museum. We started our visit with an Imax movie. We saw Sea Monsters 3D. It was very cool, as most Imax movies are. It was about prehistoric sea animals and followed the lifespan of a dolichorynchops. Marshall was pretty funny, reaching for things as they "swam" by him. After that we went over to the play side where we played ALL day! There were tons of cool things there for the kids to play and pretend. My personal favorite was an Ambulance with a stretcher that was definitely a blast from the past! They also had a little isolette full of babies that no one in my party was interested in but me. Abby's favorite was the Japanese kitchen. Marshall seemed to enjoy the "fireguy" part. He had just decided that when he grew up, he wanted to be a "fireguy" so it was right up his alley. Amelia liked the water play area. After playing straight through lunch, we left and were able to have dinner at the Olive Garden after all. It was so yummy and I encourage any of you who live where there is one to visit them tonight as you never know when you might move somewhere without one!
We had a wonderful trip and are so blessed to have had the time together.