What a Great Day!

HB got home from work this morning at around 7. Although he is always as quiet as a mouse, inevitably, I wake up. It seems that ever since I became a mother, I have also become a very light sleeper. The slightest creak will wake me out of my slumber. HB was very tired, so he laid down beside me. We clasped each others hands, and without ever uttering a word, we both quickly drifted off to sleep. At 7:30, we were both very rudely awaken. Nathan came into the room at full speed, high steeped over the chair at the foot of our bed and leaped onto the middle of the bed. He wedged our hands apart and shimmied up under the covers. He quickly found my warm legs and slid his ice cold feet up under them to get them warm. Seconds later, Grace entered the room. He came in running, tripped over the cord to the hand held massager that stays on the night stand beside the bed, looses his footing on the rug beside the bed and bangs head first into the wall. (All of this action takes place on my side of the bed.) So I sit up and pull a screaming child up out of the floor and check for blood and or broken limbs. All is fine, so I stand up and put him into the warm spot on my bed that I begrudgingly give up. I cover him up with the blankets, and head to the recliner. I pull the blanket out from under my slumbering dog that has claimed our $1800 Italian leather couch as her dog bed. I cover up and kick back in the recliner and like a blown bulb, I am out. At 9am Nathan wakes me up again. He wants to play his Godzilla game. We are down to one TV. It is in the living room where I am sleeping. That's it. I'm up for the day. No more snoozing for me. Forrest quickly informs me that he is hungry. Nathan is hungry too. So I fix them breakfast. Forrest choose Chef BoyrDee Chili Mac and Nathan chooses double stuffed ravioli. Ok, breakfast is easy enough. Two minutes in the microwave and wallah. I move on to the laundry, and then I load the dish washer. I take care of a few other hously duties and before I know it, it is 11am. I had plans for the day. We were going to a state park that was only about 30 miles from our home. We had never been there before, and I had asked one of my friends and her son to go with us. I head to the bedroom to get ready and I see that HB is awake. I tell him he has clean scrubs for work, and I tell him my plans and I head to the bathroom to get ready. He informs me that he isn't going to work tonight. Well, this changes everything. He had asked for the day off weeks ago, but I didn't know it. I was pleasantly surprised. I asked him if he wanted to go with us, and he did. So we got ready and off to my friends house we went.

We arrived at my friends house a little after noon. She informs me that she needs to go to the bank to get some money. No problem, we will follow you to the bank. She doesn't know how to get to the Park, so she will have to follow us to the park. On our way to the bank she calls me and tells me that she wants to stop and sign her son up for soccer as well. I tell her we would meet her at the Community Center (which is where I assumed soccer sign up was.) She agreed and we went our separate ways. Her to the bank, and us to the Community Center. This is where pleasant surprise number two was waiting for us. They were having an antique car show in the parking lot of the Community Center.

After perusing the old cars for several times over, my friend calls me.

Friend: "I'm done. Where are you?"

Me: "We are out here looking at all of the old cars."

Friend: "What old cars?"

Me: "All of these old cars out here in the parking lot. Didn't you see the antique car show when you pulled in?"

Friend: "I don't see you, could you walk towards the door?"

(I walk towards the door of the community center and realize, I don't see my friend.)

Me: "Where are you?"

Friend: "I'm standing here right outside of Hibbit Sports."

Me: "HIBBIT SPORTS? THAT'S CLEAR ACROSS TOWN FROM WHERE WE ARE AT!"

Friend: "This is where we had to sign up for soccer."

Me: "Why didn't you tell me it wasn't at the Community Center. Oh, never mind, just stay put, we will be over there in a couple of minutes."

So I gather my brood and we pile back into the SUV and head back across town. (My friend lives on the same side of town as Hibbit Sports.) I find my friend and off to the Park we go.

The park is sort of off the beaten path. It is in a very rural area.

The state park that we visited is called Toltec Mounds. The mounds are old Indian mounds. The park was named Toltec by mistake. The first guy that found the area thought the mounds were made by the Toltec Indians of Mexico. But after years of study, the realized that they were made by Native American Indians. But I guess the name stuck. It cost us $10 total to get in. I was a bit disappointed by the park. I was expecting a bit more, but the kids thought it was fantastic. As a matter of fact, Forrest wants to go back there tomorrow.

We walked the 2.6 mile park trail that went around the mounds and along side the Toltec Mounds Lake. The kids had a blast climbing to the top of the mounds and then rolling back down them. After we had completed our little trek, we went inside where they had the educational material. They had pottery, and arrow heads and tools and a table filled with furs. Yes, Suzanne. Real dead animal furs. Yep, it sort of made me feel a little sick too. The information lady, told us the furs had been confiscated from poachers by the Game and Fish Commission. The animals were already dead, so they had their furs preserved, for educational purposes.