Staycation Day 2 - Milwaukee

A very happy boy eating yummy food at Ted's!



Future Ballerina?

Exploring the cardiovascular system--you're never too young to learn

A scene from "BIG" starring Kylan!

In the engine

Making music

Driving the bus

Look mom! I am the weather man!

Ky & Alaina on the moon.

Ky & Alaina--future meteorologists?

Alaina at Leon's custard

Alaina in the middle of the lake

Ky not so happy about leaving the children's museum

Here he is--very unhappy...

Milwaukee Art Museum--and the ucky weather that day

We had planned on taking another mini vacation in August, but after finally just getting Alaina to sleep through the night again, we were not about to go on any “road trips”. Instead Rob and I decided that we would take a “Staycation” and do things nearby that would only require a day trip. So each of us came up with our list of “top 5’s” and then we compared our lists and decided what we would do on our “Staycation.” Our lists were very similar, so it was pretty easy to decide what we were going to do.

And since I mentioned Alaina and her sleeping....She stopped sleeping through the night beginning with our trip to Jared's wedding. She continued that way through the end of July. At the beginning of August, Rob and I decided to "let her cry it out." So that night I put Alaina down to bed and told her that we would not be getting her anymore if she woke up. I warned her that she would just have to cry. That night, she slept through the night...and has every night since. Ironic--I think not. I think babies are a lot smarter than we give them credit for....

So here is Day 2 of our staycation. We were off to Milwaukee for a fun day. The weather was cold and rainy. That was a bummer so that meant we wouldn't get to walk the lake front at all, like we had hoped. We stopped and got an early lunch at Ted's--a local restaurant that only serves breakfast and lunch. The waitress was super nice and made quick friends with Ky. We had some delicious sandwiches. Rob ordered a malt and I ordered a turtle sundae made with chocolate ice cream. The waitress went to town on my sundae. She clearly enjoyed putting it together. When she brought it to me it was oozing from caramel & fudge. WOW! That was definitely the best turtle sundae I ever had. I am glad I had my 3 best friends with me to help me eat it!

After stuffing ourselves with yummy goodness, we were off to the Betty Brynn Children's Museum. I had never been there before. Ky had once before with Nana a year or so again. As expected Ky had a blast. There was so much to do and the activities varied from Alaina's age to 12 years. Ky enjoyed climbing around in the heart model. He also enjoyed preparing his "meal" and putting it in the machine where it was "eaten". It then made fun tummy gurgling noises and explained the nutrients that were gotten out of the meal. I think Ky's favorite part was the trains and the ramps for balls. He had a lot of fun playing conductor. He also loved rolling the balls down the giant ramps. It was a very neat layout. Alaina particularly liked the wee one's area where she could crawl around in giant foam blocks and go through baby tunnels.

The next area was "imaginary" play where Ky could be a mechanic and put tires on a car or do an oil change. He could be a doctor, EMT, Postal worker, Bus driver, News/weather man, grocery store clerk or shopper. I think his favorite part was being the weather man. They had a little setup where you could actually change the background. As you can see we took lots of pics of this since the kids had so much fun being on tv. When it was time to go, Ky was overtired. He can usually go without a nap, but sometimes if we do a lot he still needs one. He threw a tantrum as we were going to leave and then fell down the stairs. He only fell a couple of steps (thank goodness) but it really shook him up. However, once we exited the building he went back into tantrum mode and would not let us get a nice picture.

All in all it was a good second staycation day. We were a little bummed with the weather, but with our big plans for the next day we figured it was best to get the kids to bed early.