Weekend Activities

This past weekend we spent Saturday morning looking at homes and apartments. Let’s just say it wasn’t very productive, promising, or even very enjoyable. I think we finished feeling more stressed about finding a place to live than when we started. It just amazes me how much people can charge for rent out here. If you want a nice place that actually has some room you’ll pay for it. We actually did see one place that was nice sized (1100 sq ft) with a small yard & driveway/garage. Only problem was that the previous tenant smoked like a chimney & the entire house is completely infiltrated with the smell. It’s 1300 a month plus utilities anyway. So after a few hours of non-productive searching we figured it was time for a break to do something fun and we headed downtown for a little sight-seeing and some activities. After we stopped for some lunch we headed down to one of the children’s museums center city. The walk down there was great, Jacob is absolutely enthralled with all the huge sky scrapers. Both boys seemed to enjoy the general frenzied excitement and activity of the city. (Good thing! They have 3 more years of it!) They were a little disappointed when I wouldn’t let them chase the pigeons into the road, but were happy about everything else. We took them to the “Please Touch” Museum downtown; a cool little museum built just for kids. It’s got lots of different activities, toys, and stations for kids to play with. They can run around doing whatever & as a parent it’s a nice break from having to worry about them being loud, running around etc. It wasn’t quite a nice as the one we went to in Omaha, Nebraska; but still pretty fun for the kids! Some of their favorite places were the blocks table, the train table, the water station with boats, the huge subway train that they can pretend to drive, and the cars display. It was a little busy; I think lots of people are looking for something fun to do that is kid-friendly on a Saturday afternoon. But we had a fun time going as a family. I think Jeff got a bigger kick out of some of the toys than the boys did! When we finally headed home around 4, both Jacob & Caleb were totally exhausted. The 8 block walk back definitely seemed a little longer than our walk down to the museum. (Jeff gets free parking at his hospital, so we generally park there and walk to where we want to go) Anyway, it was a fun way to spend the afternoon & a much needed outing for the boys. I was just disappointed that I forgot our camera.

Sunday we headed over to New Jersey for church & to look around a bit more. We’re still debating whether to try and buy a house or not, but figured we’d take the time to look around before we completely settled for a while. It was a nice Sunday, and on our way back there was a massive storm that dumped a couple inches of water in just minutes! It made the traffic on the freeway just painful. There was one place where the water was pooling on the road; it was about 2-2.5 feet deep and all the cars were just crawling through it. There were a few cars that had gotten stuck, so everyone was being cautious and it made for a pretty big traffic jam. I was grateful to be in an SUV! Anyway, we made it home finally and enjoyed a nice afternoon together.