This morning got off to a confusing start. My mom stopped by our room to say that she wanted me to hurry up because “we’re leaving.” I barely got myself ready and brought Levi down in his jammies. Then after I waited around for them to leave for about 20 minutes, I learn that I was dawdling and that we were actually leaving to go to a park and that they weren’t leaving until after the boys got a chance to play at the park for a couple hours. So, I had to scramble and throw together a diaper bag. Levi wore his jammies to the park. The park was about a 10 minute drive from Jill’s House and the boys and I loved it. Definitely tied for best park ever. The equipment was unique and fun and there are woods adjacent to the park with hiking trails. I went on an “adventure walk” with Jude and Ivan in the woods. The boys were opposites and balanced each other out well. Ivan kept saying things like, “I simply must find out what is at the end of this trail.” Jude, on the other hand, kept saying that we should turn back. Poor kiddo doesn’t have much experience hiking and he had convinced himself that there might be tigers or lions in the woods.  We didn’t go all the way to the end of the trail, but stopped at the top of the hill where there appeared to be a large rusty sewer pipe that the boys that was a cannon from a World War and another big piece of rusty something or other that the boys thought was a sunken ship. Jude worried pirates might be lurking around. After the park, there were some sad good-byes with my mom, dad, sister and nephews. Nothing is sadder than watching my boys cry when their cousins leave. Jude commented on how he didn’t get enough time with his Grandma Forbes, Grandpa Forbes, Aunt Katie and Ivan and Jonah and didn’t get to see Uncle Phil at all (well, that’s because Uncle Phil didn’t even come — ha!).Â
Thankfully, we were able to distract them from the sadness with Andy’s great idea of going to the Indianapolis Zoo today. The highlights for me were seeing a 1 year old elephant (I guess we missed the 3 week old elephant which would have been a highlight for me) and watching Jude pet a shark. It was a dogshark, with blunt teeth. But, it sounds cool, nonetheless. He’s got an impressive record — he sat on a live alligator days before he turned 4 and at age 5 pets sharks for fun. Practically fearless, except when it comes to worrying about tigers, lions and pirates in the woods of Indiana.