Family Getaway

Back in the middle of October, we decided to take a family getaway. Our detasseling job this summer took up the entire month of July, daddy coaching football took up the entire month of August, September and most of October so our family time was quite minimal. So we decided to plan a little family getaway to Minnesota the week after football season was over. Pete had a day off of school so we decided it would be a great time to go away for a long weekend.  We asked all kinds of people to give us suggestions on family friendly places to visit..that were within driving distance.
This was one of the places suggested...

 
In Edina, Minnesota.
This is about 4 hours away from our house so we felt that it was within driving distance and manageable. 
One of the main attractions to this hotel was this...

Adventure Peak

The Edinborough Park Playpark is almost one acre of indoor fun, highlighted by Adventure Peak, one of the largest indoor play structures in the country.

Adventure Peak

 This was right out the lobby of our hotel!!!!

With a name like "Indoor Playpark and Adventure Peak" how could we not CHECK IT OUT!
The park cost $6 for Cael, only! Even though they highly encourage parents to climb in the Adventure peak and play in the big gym....parents are FREE! Yeah...you read that right...FREE!! 
How great is that!?

Here is a little bit of the pictures that we captured while we were there!

As difficult as this may look...he really did figure it out!!

  

 

 

This is the gym area that was full of fun things to do!

Another scooter..which he loved!

 

There was even a smaller climbing area restricted to toddlers.

Up in the Adventure Peak there was a helecopter that he found to climb in.

I just love his little grim in this picture!

This is the view from the gym. You can see the climbing area in the distance.

Here is the hotel where we stayed!
We got the Last Minute Weekend deal that they have listed on the side of their website.
Our King Suite is a...must...NEXT TIME! Super great setup...for a family!

The bedroom with sliding doors that separate the rooms.

The "living room" area. You can see the "apartment" size fridge we had too! :)

 The hotel also provided a great complimentary breakfast.
SO...with all that combined how could you not ask for a SUPER GREAT WEEKEND together?!!

SCCCCCRRRRREEEEEEEECCHHH........

Yeah, that is a sound a record scratching...bringing this dreamlike family vacation to a
screeching....HALT! 

Now have I mentioned that we have a  2 year old in the house?!
So you do the equation..

A 2 year old + an upset in routine+ a family "VACATION"=
BEAUTIFUL BLISS, right?!?!?

WRONG...way WRONG!

Our adventure started on a Friday. It was a blustery, cold Friday that nixed our morning plans of going to an apple orchard. So we laid low that AM, working to wear Cael out so he would sit well and sleep for the 4 hours car ride.  I am happy to say...he did just that!
This might be the only thing that went "as planned" this whole trip.
After we arrived at the hotel, we walked around and tried to get an idea of where things were and kind of mapped out our evening. We thought we would swim, play in the hotel room, read some books, eat some supper and go to bed. So we did most of that with very little fight..all except the "going to bed" part.
So we started going to bed around 9pm (which is about an hour past his normal bed time) so we thought for sure he would be tired. Um..nope. After a 2+ hour battle of doing every thing within our power to get him to just lay down and go to sleep...he finally passed out around 11:30pm.
WHEW.
The next morning he woke up around 5:15am.
We told him it was not time to wake up yet so after another almost hour battle he finally fell back to sleep.
He didn't wake up until 9:45am! And we practically WOKE him up.
So Saturday morning plans: THROWN OUT THE WINDOW.
Plan B...go to the Mall of American and walk around.
We decided to not battle him with taking a nap that day because we knew it would only give us more headache. We thought the mall would keep him awake, and it did!
We went against our rule of "no blankie and binkie except in your bed rule"...only out of ..SHEAR NECESSITY and SURVIVAL (on our part). Since he had those two forbidden items all afternoon he actually did pretty well in the stroller.
We walked passed the Build a Bear store and thought it would be fun for him to do that as a birthday gift!
The store was overflowing with people and it was chaotic. I tried really hard to keep him in the stroller while we waited in line but no such luck.
We let him out and he ran...ALL. OVER. THE. STORE!
 I mean, everywhere.
The line was so long and it was taking forever.
I was losing my patience by this time and I just wanted to leave.
But finally it was our turn.
I'm so glad we stayed. What a fun experience for him!

 

 

 

 

 

Look at that 'angelic' grin, he has! No..I'm talking about the little boy!

Meet BEN!

After that great experience we decided it was time we venture back to the hotel and think about supper.
So on the way back to the hotel, we thought we would find a great place to stop and eat.
FAIL.
Yeah, we drove around for over an hour and found very little options for us to sit down to eat.
Until we found
APPLEBEE'S.
But wait..isn't this vacation?! We have an Applebees in our town...we can eat there anytime.
Oh well...its getting late..our son is hungry..and SUPER tired.
Applebee's..it is.
We prepped him before we walked in. How we are going to sit and eat.
We get in.
Sit down.
And it takes nearly 10 minutes for our waitress to come take our drink order.
Oh brother...why didn't we leave at that moment..I don't know.
We finally ordered our food.
We tried all that we could to keep him playing...happy..content..and quiet.
Oh..did I mention he hadn't had a nap.
Yeah.
One word: MELTDOWN.
Nothing, I mean nothing was getting this child under control.
Daddy took him to the car. Gave him a very stern talking to.
I asked for to-go containers for all of our food.
And we LEFT!
Yep.
5 minutes into our dinner...we leave the restaurant that we drove around for over an hour to find. 
We drove back to the hotel with a screaming child in the backseat.
We walked through the hotel with him still crying.
We changed him into his pajamas....at 6:30pm and tried to read some books.
Finally got him to stop crying.
We put him in his pack-n-play, shut the sliding doors...and let him fuss until he finally gave in to sleep around 7:00pm.
SIGH
Wow.
What just happened?
This is.....a...VACATION?!
Um..not what we had in mind.
I am very happy to report that Sunday he slept in until at least 7:30 and our ride home went smoothly.
On the ride home I started getting a major headache. One that was making me sick to my stomach. I thought for sure I was going to put a "cherry on top" of this weekend by tossing my cookies...but I didn't.
PTL.

Now...
I wrote out all of those details in this post so that we will never forget this beautiful "vacation" that we had together with our 2 year old!
At one point on Saturday, Pete and I looked at each other and said
"You know what.......We prayed for this"
....that was followed by a lot of laughter on our part!

Even though the entire weekend went hardly as planned, we were TOGETHER...and that is what we wanted to be.
I love my family.
I love my helpful, peacemaking husband.
I love my stubborn, adorable 2 year old.
I love the idea of making memories as a little family.
This will definitely be a vacation that will go down in history for us!

The life with a 2 year old...