Spring Break week over here! SportsBoy was on his school's spring break, so Mr. Wonderful, SuperKid and I decided to join in on the fun! After a lot of indecision - should we go somewhere for break? for a few days? not at all? - we decided to hang out at home this week. Turned out to be a great decision. We all got some much-needed time to relax, hang out, play, and just enjoy each other's company.
Tuesday morning we finally made our way to the new aquarium in town. I think it's been open for a few months now, and the boys have been wanting to check it out. We've been to a couple of other aquariums (including Newport and Chicago), and the boys were happy to finally have one closer to home. We got there right as it opened and were able to get through the exhibits pretty quickly. The website suggests planning on 1-1/2 hours for viewing, and that was pretty much dead-on. We enjoyed our visit, but all agreed it was not a place we would rush back to. The touch tank was fun - we had never been up close and personal with a horseshoe crab before - but the manta rays and little sharks that were in there are pretty standard touch tank fare, and we have been lucky enough to experience that several times in other locations. The shark tank, clearly the highlight of the aquarium, was not working properly. The water was very cloudy - at places we could not see anything unless it was moving right against the glass. We received a discount on our admission cost because of that, but it was really disappointing. The prices, in our opinion, are just too steep to warrant another visit just to get to see the shark tank.
I had wanted to visit the West Side Market for lunch after our excursion to the aquarium, but it is not open on Tuesdays, so we drove into the heart of downtown looking for some food trucks. I wanted us to have a unique experience to highlight our "special day," so sitting in a restaurant or grabbing fast food was not going to cut it. We found two trucks on East 9th that we really enjoyed - The Nosh Box and Rocco Whalen's Shortribs 1. Good, simple food but getting it from the truck made it seem yummier and more special. Very fun!
We ended our big day with dessert at The Melting Pot. That was really fun - and very tasty! We all enjoyed it. SuperKid is super-picky, so he wasn't into dipping his dessert. He's also not that into sweets, either, but he liked dunking treats for the rest of us while he nibbled on the strawberries and bananas sans chocolate. The rest of us made sure every millimeter of our treats were covered in chocolate before downing them! It was a great way to end our "vacation day."
SuperKid had Classical Conversations on Wednesday, and we did not want to miss that, so Wednesday was a school day for us, though we did get into the Spring Break spirit by having dinner at a local restaurant (we don't eat out very often, so all the meals out this week were a big treat for us). The boys spent the rest of the break relaxing, playing games, working on fun projects and just hanging out. A true vacation!
Next week, back to work. I'm ready, but I don't know about the boys. SuperKid and I were just getting on a roll; I'm hoping we can pick up on the momentum we had. We'll see. It's a busy week here next week. I am nursing several injuries right now, so I have several doc appointments as well as a couple of physical therapy appointments next week. SK has his annual doc appointment, and I have a couple of meetings scheduled, too. Classical Conversations, two sessions with SK's tutor (I will talk about that another time), cub scouts and piano lessons round out Monday through Thursday. On Friday, SportsBoy joins us at home again for Good Friday. Yep, a busy week. . . That always seems to happen after a week of the good life! :-)
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