MN Thompson's

<><><> Warning – long post – lots of pics <><><>

Whew – busy week packed full of good times. It’s hard to leave for a week when the yard and garden are showing off and growing like crazy. It’s been a great year for both flowers (plus the new path I’m building this year) and veggies…

First stop on the roadtrip was Chicago to get some quick pizza at Giordano’s for lunch. I called ahead as we left Wisconsin since stuffed pizza takes 45 minutes to bake. It was awesome as always (spinach, mushroom and sausage – yah)! Then we were off to Rochester, In. Grandma T was doing great – we talked a lot, ran over to the dam, got some pizza and saw many other Thompson’s and a couple of Biggs’. It’s always good to see everyone but there’s just never enough time to stay long enough.

We left Rochester early the next day and zipped to Lafayette. We made a few stops on campus…the fountain…the Union…and t-shirts for me…and then saw Wendy and her kids (and a few of her sister’s kids). Again, the trip was great but WAY too quick…

From Purdue we headed to the Great Wolf Lodge in Cincinnati for the Percy family reunion. We stayed there for 3 nights and apparently didn’t take any pictures (lucky for you). One day we went to King’s Island which was right next door to “the lodge” (so close that we could walk there). It was kind of a chilly day which meant that we could ride the river raft ride as much as we wanted to – we didn’t even have to get off of it, we could just keep looping. This was the best river raft ride I’ve been on – and typically the line can be over an hour…so we started and ended our day riding this…and walked around with soggy britches in between…

We also went to the Hofbrauhaus in Newport, Kentucky. It was a German restaurant where you were strongly encouraged to dance on the benches (but not the tables – we watched a group get thrown out for dancing on the table…seems like a fine line to cross). It was fun but the food convinced me that I never want to travel to Germany. Not my cup of Kartoffelpfannkuchen. My stomach ached the entire next day.

From Cincinnati we drove to St. Louis were we stayed for two nights before coming back to Minnesota (with just Megan). While in St. Louis we went to the coolest place downtown called the City Museum. Their tag line is “where the imagination runs wild” – this place was out of control. So many places you go to these days go overboard in terms of safety and not letting kids explore and play…this place was the exact opposite. I left there bleeding and bruised in several spots (seriously) – and I couldn’t have been happier. You could climb, crawl, hang, slide, you name it – EVERYWHERE in this place – under the floor, in the walls, overhead, behind the exhibits, indoors, outdoors, and they built this place with any material they could find – which was largely cement and metal (and of course no foam or anything to protect sharp edges, etc). When is the last time you slid down a cement slide? Or a slide made of rebar? This place is impossible to describe and words wouldn’t do it justice…so here are a bunch of pictures. In the outdoor pictures just look for Christopher in the green shirt. I definitely recommend this place to anyone visiting St. Louis – your kids will LOVE it!

The sign above this slide just said to keep your arms raised in the air…because if your fingers got caught while sliding down a slide made or rollers…well…let’s not think about that…

If your child got trapped or hurt in many of these places there is no way you could even get them…I was in some spots where I seriously had to go through spaces one arm at a time or I wouldn’t fit. Fun fact, on Friday nights they let the alcohol flow and open this place up to the college kids…so cool.

And a train to ride…kids can climb underneath the center area where you see the red bars in the back…

Cousin Matthew way up top…

Christopher underneath the walkway…

This is a 7-story slide that spirals the entire way down. This building used to be a shoe factory and this slide was used to slide shoes from the top floor to the bottom of the buildling…and we slid down the actual slides from way back when.

And…another highlight of the trip…Megan turned 4!!! Our little baby is 4 years old – hard to believe, huh?

The laundry chute never gets old. Here is Megan dropping her baby doll down to the basement. Grandma’s only rule (learned by experience) is “no spitting”. Yuck. This time the kids would send one kid to the basement armed with a mop. They would hold that up to block the chute at which point the kid up top would jam it full of stuff. Then another kid in the basement would put a plastic tub over their head and would proceed to have an avalanche of junk pour onto them. Oh, to be a kid again.

Colleen and Christopher stayed in St. Louis with Beth’s parents for a few days. Here’s Megan entertaining herself outside with all of her baby dolls. She still LOVES those dolls. She would take them one by one and hook them up to the dog’s chain outside and take them each for a walk…hee hee…

Ok, enough for now.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Birthday, Children. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.