Wonderful, Funderful Weekend!

Our not-as-random-as-it-sounds roadtrip down to Louisville was a ginormous success. It was SO. MUCH. FUN. And we didn't really go to Louisville.... we stopped just North, at the Clark State Forest--the oldest state forest in Indiana, est. 1903! Anja is a joy to have as a car passenger. She just looks out the window at the trucks and flowers, or sings us songs, or looks at books. Greta is a horrible, horrible, horrible passenger (we are going to get her a front-facing seat sometime very soon and hopefully it will solve this problem) but we timed every ride perfectly around sleep and she slept the entire way down, the entire way back to Edinburg where we stopped at the Outlet stores, and then the whole way home. Anja slept part of the way down too, which was great because she needed the nap, and also fell asleep and slept the whole way home at the end of the day. The Clark State Forest is a fabulous place. For one thing, it's free! They have hiking trails, a couple of little ponds (I think they called them lakes, but they weren't very big) for fishing, a big field to run around in and pick dandelions, and a nice little old-school playground. The girls really liked the "roundabout" (has anyone else heard of Percy the Park Keeper?) and Anja especially liked going down the the bigger of the two slides with her daddy. Also, there were the bucket swings, of course.... always a hit.

We took a picnic of sorts down with us and I was very proud of our minimalistic travels with two young children. Unfortunately, lunch was a little less filling than planned since I left the loaf of bread sitting on the kitchen table, but we did have a couple of blocks of good cheese, a pound of salami and some apples and bananas. It was plenty. We each had a nalgene and Martin had a pocket knife, and we were set for picnicking.

Do you not ADORE Anja's wool sweater?! My mother in law found it at the Trinity Mission fabric sale. I was so glad for the cool weekend so she was able to wear it!

After the park, when it was clearly time for us to go, we drove about an hour North to Edinburg to visit the outlet mall there. I had never been and we weren't really looking for anything specific except some shorts for Martin because his are disintegrating they are so old and worn. Unfortunately, even deals are often still too expensive. They did have a zillion good stores though, and if we weren't grownups now with more important things to spend our money on, we might still be willing to pay expensive-bargain prices and be dressed nicely. Haha! It didn't much matter anyway since the first store we visited was Gap, where Anja fell in love with a pair of blue jelly shoes. We couldn't get her out of the store. Finally, we got her out but she was crying so much that Martin tried to distract her by taking her into Claire's--you know, that store that sells all things Girl. TWO HOUR LATER, we settled on a flowery headband for $1 and was able to convince her to exit the store without crying. While Martin was looking at headbands, earrings, bangle bracelets and handbags with Anja for two hours, I was walking back and forth down the sidewalk outside with Greta, who was pushing the umbroller. Back and forth, back and forth, for two hours, she never got tired. She barely stopped for anything, except the couple of times she saw an interesting pebble. It was crazy.

So the outlet malls weren't exactly the event we were expecting, but we were still happy to be there and everything was great. The only thing we didn't do that we'd wanted to was stop someplace and get pie and ice cream (a Martin & Annie Roadtrip tradition) but the time was never right since the girls slept so nicely in the car. That was going to be our emergency stop for when everyone was screaming, but that time never came!

So anyway... we got home around 11:00 and got everyone transferred to their beds nicely and got to bed ourselves and the whole day was wonderful.

On Sunday we made it ON TIME to the 9:30 Mass where we sat with my sister and nieces, then stood in the back with our crazy daughters and Gracie. There were loads of other little kids back there and at one point Gracie said to me, "Wow. That's a big blob of babies!" Afterward we went over to coffee and doughnuts in the gym and visited with people. We got to see Luke and Theresa again and we dragged Lina and Dimitri over as well. I love coffee and doughnuts in the gym! Letsee.... Greta took a nap while Martin did yardwork and I made lunch.... then we ate lunch..... and then we drove out to Lina and Dimitri's house. Martin helped Dimitri put together a toddler bed for Sophia and we just kind of hung out, drinking wine and eating chocolate. We took a little walk to the back of their neighborhood where there's a wooded lot that backs up to the Wildcat Creek. I'm so glad it's spring.

I'm about half an hour late on my shower time now, so I'd better jump in. It was a very good weekend!