It is that time of year again. The time of year where we pack up our bags, pack up our snack basket, pack up our kids and head...5 miles down the road to the Hilton Homewood Suites for our annual Powers Family Staycation Adventure.
As you can see...we are stoked.
The kids, for the most part, had no clue what was happening, only that something exciting was going down in a big way. They started making some guesses after I had them all trying on their swimming gear though.
And so it began on this Thursday morning. We woke up, packed up and drove off to our first check-point. Brunch at IHOP! Where the kids enjoyed funny face pancakes and I enjoyed the refillable vanilla ice coffees.
Our next checkpoint was Target, not only because we had a bit of time to kill, but also because we needed to buy swimming goggles. We loaded up the car and drove across the parking lot from IHOP to Target. As we were climbing out of the car, a group of teenagers were walking near us with their arms laden with hot food from the food court. One of the guys dropped his order of bread sticks and then they all just walked off and left everything laying there in front of us.
“They just littered!”
“Yeah! That’s littering!”
Jaycob picked up the empty box to throw in the trash (I wouldn’t let him pick up the messy food) and as he went about his righteous task he grumbled his indignation. “We should never do that. Littering is being rude to the WORLD!”
Jordan agreed, “That is Satan’s job!”
Into Target we marched. Darrin took the kids straight to the swimming section and I veered straight to the Starbucks section. Right? A couple of vanilla iced coffees from IHOP just weren’t going to cut it.
White chocolate mocha in hand, I located my family busily picking out colorful goggles and kick boards and steered them toward the arts and crafts section to pick out coloring books for down time at the hotel. They, of course, each picked out a 2 inch thick activity book instead of the thin (cheap) coloring books I’d meant for them to choose from. But whatever, this weekend was all about them and I was in the business of making dreams come true for the next couple of days.
We completed our purchases and loaded back in the car and drove back across the parking lot behind IHOP to the...
Movie theater!
We took them to see Rio which they loved and I’m pretty sure I need the soundtrack. As a family we put down a large popcorn and large soda and walked out with the free refills. Holla!
Off to the hotel now, for SWIMMING!
Let us in, let us in!!
The first day, we swam for a couple of hours (I took my point and shoot camera and seriously regret it now. Not because it got wet and ruined, it didn’t, but it takes horrible pictures.)
Back to the room to get ready for dinner and a little bit of in-room activities.
Like, whatever is in Jordan’s backpack. Seriously, could be anything.
Like coloring!
Like Sportscenter!
How about UNO!?
Our hotel offers complimentary dinner on weeknights and this is one of the reasons we go to this particular hotel every year. On tonight’s menu, soup, salad, breadsticks and cold cut sandwiches.
A couple of photos with the local wildlife.
Dinner is over, back to the pool! I brought my other camera this time. :)
Joshua was terrified of the water. As the hours wore on, he did get braver but refused to swim across the pool. He wanted to spend all his time in the hot tub (which was uber hot, not good for babies) so we made him a deal. If he would swim across the pool, he could get in the hot tub for one minute. So he had Jordan tow him across.
Hot tub plus low bench plus water wings equals funny.
Bravery was the goal of the day. Some were only brave enough to jump in after....
A little moral support from big brother while trying to convince himself to swim across for hot tub privileges.
Jordan, our little fishy, was fearless and fabulous. She wanted to spend all her time in the big pool (not the hot tub) and she was jumping in and dunking herself regularly. Awesome.
Being a dorkus in the hot tub.
After our night swim, we headed back to the room for, what else?
Ice cream sundaes.
After the ice cream, we enjoyed a movie and then bed time at 10pm!
This concludes staycation day 1. Stay tuned...
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