Indianapolis

I called the hotel early this morning (while we were about an hour away) to see if they would have our room ready.  When making the reservation, I requested a 10am check-in.  I didn’t expect them to be able to accommodate it but “it never hurts to ask”.  Our original plan was to get into town, go out to breakfast with the kids, then find some place to play for a while.  After a long night on the road, that seemed a bit ambitious.

To my delight (and I’d guess Beth was ecstatic), they had a room open for us whenever we got in.  Terrific! 

After checking in, we unloaded the car and got the kids changed.  We went downstairs to breakfast where, though we were 12 hours away, it was the same menu as our 8 week stay at the Residence Inn at Bishop’s Gate in Mt. Laurel!  After eating, we got things setup and let the kids take a nap (got the kids quiet enough that we could take a nap!).

That lasted about 45 minutes and we had to let the kids out of the hotel room (look back to blog entries from February and March to see why they weren’t going to tolerate being in the hotel room).  We went down and walked along the canal.  Lilly checked out the ducks and fish while Josiah pointed out the birds.  We explored as long as the kids let us and then went to lunch.  Despite a recommendation, lunch at the Indiana State Museum’s cafeteria was a flop.  Not much more to say there.

After lunch, we walked back to the hotel (it was great having the entrance to the hotel right down on the canal walk!) to get the kids settled for their nap.  Everyone was down by 2pm (all 4 of us).  Only an hour and a half later, Josiah was up crying!  I went out to sit with him and was able to prolong his nap another hour.  Despite having almost no sleep myself, sitting with him and helping him settle for that extra hour of sleep he badly needed was the highlight of my day.

We went out for a walk over to Steak & Shake (fancy diners that we are).  This is a good point to reiterate how much we love our Bob double-stroller – the flimsy ( but small enough to fit in the trunk with all our stuff) stroller we brought along is no substitute.

While eating, there were horse-drawn carriages sitting on the street outside.  Lilly didn’t see them at first, but after eating, we pointed them out to her (she was a little altitude-challenged to find them on her own).  She spent the next 20 minutes (not kidding) standing at the window yelling “Neigh! Neigh!” and waving at the horses.  More than once, she turned to yell “Neigh!” to the other people in the restaurant.

 

[Beth slipped her finger over the microphone for the end, sorry!]

 

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and got the kids ready for bed.  It’s tough having them in the same room at home, having them in the sitting room of the hotel suite is a bit more difficult but they’re tired enough it’s manageable.  The bigger challenge is that there’s no chance in the world we can leave the room once they are asleep!

We’re wrapping up blogging (and I’m wrapping up some work emails)