Friday Night Surprise

To make a short story long, this afternoon, while sitting in a dr's office with #2, who is having knee problems, I read that the Children's Museum is free on the 1st Friday of the month.  Yes, that is TONIGHT!

We hadn't been there in FOREVER, so I called the Warden, who was still at work and would continue to be for a number of hours.  Knowing he'd say no, I asked what he thought.  Surprisingly, he said, "Let's do it."

We got home after receiving a referral to the physical therapy department (yay!), ate pizza for dinner and headed out.  While the pizza was cooking, the kids were trying all kinds of ways to get out of me where we were going.  "Mom, I want to wear these shoes, but if I do, will they get all wet and ruined?"  "Do we need our heavy coats?"  "Will we be inside?"  "Are we going to #2's basketball game?" #2 didn't have a game tonight, but they knew that wherever we were going it was free because I'd let them know that much.

It wasn't part of the original plan to keep it a secret, but it just felt like a fun idea, so we did.  We drove up by the zoo, and the kids said, "Where are we going?"  When we told them the Children's Museum, to be honest, I thought the oldest kids'd groan, but I was thrilled to hear a cheer go up from the back seats in the van.

Back when we had two children, we had a membership to the museum.  It was in a different location back then--in an old house, and it was great for wet Oregon days.  With the membership, you could go whenever you wanted to and just let the kids play and play.  A membership is currently $85 if you were wondering.

Watching them in the museum cracked me up.  They stuck together through everything.  I thought for sure one kid'd go off one direction and another another, but NOT AT ALL.  First, they had to go see the Lego display then they went to the giant light bright and worked together to create a work of beauty.  They went to the water room and then to the play house and the vet.

It was a mother's dream--that my kids WANTED to be together.

We were there for an hour then came home, put #7 to bed, and got everyone in their jammies.  I made brownies in a mug.  We had family scripture study and played a game of Uno.

I've decided there's nothing quite like playing games with the fam.  They just show funny sides of their personalities.  Tonight, #1 was imitating #7 saying, "I no yike it" in a rather evil tone whenever someone'd play a bad card on her. 

Oh how I love my crazy family!

So you can feel like you were there with us, here are the photos of the evening.  

The Lego display is at the museum until January 22nd.

#6 jousting

#2...umm...jousting?

The window behind #1 and #7 is all made out of transparent legos.

Hmm.  Someone's missing.

Oh, there he is.

The kids image shown on the ceiling--they were directly under it looking up.

I felt someone tugging on my pant leg...turned around, and this is what I found.

The work of art on the giant light bright.

Can't make out #1 in the middle very well, but #2 and #3 are on either side of her.

The three amigos.

#7 found this dolly.  We thought it belonged to the museum.  We found out otherwise later.  Funny!

The crew on the boat.

The babysitter.

This window is upstairs looking down on the first floor.

#5

This was SO FUNNY!  The kids stuck him in here very willingly.  Right about the time they shut the door, a voice came on the loud speaker saying the museum was closing in 15 minutes.  The kids, thinking the voice was telling them not to stick their brother in the cage scrambled to let him out.

#5 and #7 upstairs

 What a BLAST!