Staycation

Ever since moving here, Stephanie and I have been lamenting that we will not get a bona fide vacation this summer. Yes, I got about a week off of work during the move, but believe me, that was no vacation. Yes my hours are flexible, and I can often go to work late or come home early to do something fun with the family, and just make up the lost time once everyone else is asleep. Yes, Stephanie and I are planning a day away for our anniversary in a week and a half, but that will be a day trip at best. The chances for a real, just-have-fun-and-relax-as-a-family-for-a-week vacation were looking bleak. The blame could be equally divided between a busy workload and lack of discretionary family funds (see previous references to move and anniversary).

Tuesday evening, I decided that although we couldn't have a real vacation, I would take the next few days off and have a family stay-cation. I went in to work on Wednesday for a meeting (over Skype), and then came home early and spent the rest of the week with the family. We didn't do anything super out of the ordinary, but we did have a lot of fun doing the things we normally do. We went grocery shopping, swam at the the pool, ate popsicles on our back porch, went for walks outside, played at the playground, went to the mall, and played at the splash park, among other things. And finally, we topped it off yesterday with our first trip to Indianapolis. Here are the highlights of the trip.

• We started the day with square donuts for breakfast. Heather was very excited, but kept on asking if we could have circle donuts instead.
• Our first stop in Indianapolis was the Provident Living center. We used up our wheat right before moving, and we were about out of oats, so we loaded up on our bulk grains.
• We then headed over to the Circle Centre mall right in the center of downtown. On the way over there passed stadiums for local pro sports teams, as well as a few museums and history centers. We'll definitely have to make another trip soon!
• We did a bit of window shopping at the mall, but mostly we were looking for a new swimsuit for Stephanie. We found one not too long after our lunch break.
• Stephanie and I would have loved to walk around downtown and check out the sites after shopping, but the kids were done. Joshua had missed his typical morning nap, and Heather was just plain tired of obeying. We packed up and headed home, making a final stop at Sonic for happy hour (1/2 price slushies).

So it wasn't the most amazing or extravagant vacation ever, but we got to spend a lot of time together and eat some special treats. Stephanie and I are really looking forward to some one-on-one time during our anniversary date in a week and a half. Hopefully that will be enough to charge up the ol' batteries until we can have a real family vacation again!