Random Labor Day Trip

Since we moved to Indianapolis just over 1 year ago, we've really been missing our good friends the Sandersons (Derek, Elise, Aleah, and Reed). They spent the past week in St. Louis which is 4 hours from us and originally we were going to try to make it over there to see them but it ended up just not working out for us. So, at the last minute on Saturday night we decided together with Derek and Elise that we would try to meet up on their trip home. The plans changed about 3 times and at 10:00 on Saturday night we decided that we would leave straight after church on Sunday and meet Derek and Elise in Evansville, IN. It was about a 3 hour drive for us but it was on their way home. What is there to do in Evansville? Um.....go out to eat and hang out at a hotel? Random!!! Thankfully, Derek has lots of Holiday Inn points so we didn't have to pay for the hotel rooms and this Holiday Inn had a very cool indoor pool! We got there in the middle of the afternoon and the kids were so excited to be reunited! We had not seen them since May. Here's a good shot of Jack and Reed attacking.......I mean, hugging each other!!Aleah was excited to have her 2 favorite boys together for a night. She was very intent on us taking this picture of her with the boys!!!
You might ask, what in the world is Jack doing here?
Well, he is just following Aleah's example. This was what Aleah referred to as the "dog house." Too funny if you ask me!
We decided to go eat at Abuelos. It's a very good but overpriced tex-mex restaurant. The kids were all great but it was definitely time to let them play some when we got back to the hotel. Jack and Reed loved the baby pool, but it was hard to keep them in there once they discovered the big pool! I didn't really get any great shots of the big pool because when the kids were in there so were all the adults! It had several fountains - Jack took a shower in one of them and had a blast doing it. After swim time, our little monkey fell asleep rather quickly so we all hung out in Derek and Elise's room while their kids wound down some more. Eventually Reed and Aleah fell asleep in the middle of the bed with me scratching Aleah's back and Reed in the middle of his mommy and daddy so the adults got to stay up late talking and catching up. It was well worth our time to go get a dose of our good friends!!! This morning we went to eat breakfast together before heading home. Our 3 hour journey home took us EIGHT HOURS!!!!!!!! This was kind of intentional. We did some pretty random things on our trip. The first one being stopping at this place:Who knew such places existed in Indiana? This is in Ferdinand. It's a very ornate monastery. We met some really nice people who showed us around and seriously, I felt like I was back in Europe touring all the cathedrals over there. Pretty interesting. After eating lunch at subway, we headed on up the scenic route through French Lick, IN (the home of a huge casino and resort). We just drove past it and didn't stop. Then, made our way to the town of Bloomington (home of IU) where we drove through the town and once again, didn't stop. But, we had never seen it. Looks like a great place to explore. Then, we took another scenic route over to Edinburgh, IN (home of some great shopping outlets) where I had a few stores I needed to go in. Then, we arrived in Indy around 6 and stopped at our favortie Mexican restaurant before heading to the house. Whew!!!!! It was a GREAT day for us as a family to just be together and do some random things. Jack was great in the car. He is really interactive with us now so it's so much fun to have him try to say different words and point out interesting things to him. Now, we're home again and I'm about to go watch the beginning of the Tennessee football season on t.v. GO VOLS!!!!!!!!!!