Family Skip Day

The clinic nurses all had some conference to attend today, so by default, Bob had the day off of work. I can tell you that in seven years, we have never had such luck as this! A day with Daddy! What an occasion! So to celebrate, we took the kids out of school for a day(except for Alex and Michael whose high school/college courses were a bit too important to miss unnecessarily), and had our first Family Skip Day. The kids had a valid excuse to miss school....they had an "all day long appointment with a special doctor." HA!

After "sleeping in", which involved not actually getting any extra sleep, but lounging in bed watching morning cartoons for a few extra minutes, we set off to the Minnesota Zoo. We have had a membership there for several years, and it is one of my favorite places to take the kids during the week. A great place to learn lots of new things, get some good exercise, and have the place relatively to ourselves. Today, we were more interested in something we have never checked out before: the IMAX theater.

We watched "How to Train a Dragon" in IMAX 3D. It was wonderful! I am not sure that I will ever be able to sit through a plain old regular movie again. I have been spoiled by the cinematic possibilities! To make our time even sweeter, the ticket guy felt so bad for us buying so many tickets that he let Bob in free. I was not originally going to see the movie.....I had planned on walking around the zoo with my crabby, noisy baby. But the wonderfully kind usher woman insisted I go in and try to watch it with the baby...because it was "such a fantastic movie". She insisted I go in without paying, and if it worked out, I could buy a ticket retroactively. I am so thankful for her suggestion. Bethany fell asleep within about 15 minutes, and took her regular morning nap until the very end of the movie. It worked out perfectly, and I so very much enjoyed the show! And yes, I did pay for my ticket afterwards (the ticket guy was SOOO confused!).

We went through a bit of the inside of the zoo quickly before Jonny needed to be back for play rehearsal. Did I mention that he is the Tin Man in the Wizard of OZ? I think I did. The kids were so thrilled to have Daddy along with us for the day. I am not sure that he has ever been to the zoo with us before!

For dinner, we all(Daddy again included, for the first time ever) went to the kids' school with Grandma C for Bayview's Annual Spaghetti Dinner and Silent Auction fundraiser. In the past, we have won several baskets of fun items. But lately, competition has become too fierce, and unless you stand directly at your basket of choice, someone inevitably outbids you at the very last second. Last year, though having bid on 15 items, we won nothing because we were not able to stay until the end.

The kids enjoyed free balloon animals, Wildcat tatoos, and as always the yummy spaghetti dinner. Alex met us for dinner. This just so happened to be his birthday dinner. Funny thing, us all enjoying a Family Skip Day on his birthday without him. Poor guy! At least he got to enjoy his favorite meal on his birthday, even if I was not the one to cook it!

After dinner, Bob took the little two home, Alex and I went to see James MacDonald (which I will write about in Alex's Birthday post), and Grandma C braved the evening out with the other three. They watched a teacher cream pie eating contest, a synchronized cup stacking show, and a choir concert. They had a blast, and I think Grandma had fun too. And Grandma was on the ball with the auction baskets....she came away winning two! To Tubby's delight, they were both Spiderman themed baskets. Might as well have been Thomas' birthday today instead of Alex's!

We had so much fun today as a family, that we have decided to do this every year. We joked about doing it on Alex's birthday each year, regardless if he can make it or not. Or perhaps we will make the Silent Auction our day.....I think Daddy was kind of getting into the whole competitive bidding thing! :o)