Spring Breakin'
The kids are on Spring Break this week. So I have made a point of doing a few things with them to make it more entertaining and keep them away from the tv and computers at least for a while.
Monday everyone slept in recovering from the weekend.
Tuesday saw Timmy, Becca, Dave and I heading to Chuck E. Cheese. I hate, loath and despise that place, but as with most kids, mine love it. (Devin sat this one out. She enjoyed some big girl time alone at home. Fostering some independence and checking her ability to follow rules and behave appropriately while home alone.) Timmy has been wanting to go to the Chuckesters Place for a while now. He has been earning "Brownie Points" for about 3 months to go. I'm real proud of the effort he made to get there. It was as horrible as ever but he and Becca had a blast playing and I'll be darned if they didn't scarf up that nasty, blah cheese pizza. Go figure.
After we were done, Becca headed to work with Dave for the afternoon. It was something that she have been wanting to do for a while now. So Timmy and I hit the party store for birthday party supplies and then went to Wal-Mart for some groceries. As we were walking into Party City, he reaches into his mouth and pulls out his tooth! He lost his first tooth! Pretty exciting day for my little man. Getting party stuff just added to his bliss. Cars will be the theme, of course. He is going to be 6 and all little boys right now seem to be all about Cars. Some big boys too. lol.
Today, after Timmy blissfully found a dollar left by the Tooth Fairy we got ready to go on our adventure today. The Clinton Library and lunch, then to the movies to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dave took the day off work to go with us and it actually went pretty well.
The Clinton Presidential Library has an ugly reputation for looking like a trailer (Mobile Home). Its actually a very clean, artistic, modern design on the outside and inside is a cross between contemporary and traditional. I quite liked it. For the 5 of us to go, it was only 20.00, so it was an affordable family day trip too. Its set up so that you enter a ground level where you go through security and then pay your admission. Up and escalator to the second floor where there is a theater with an introductory film. It gives a good overview and then you get to go to the Cabinet Room. A complete reproduction of the Cabinet room when he was in office. There are about 6 touch screen monitors you can use to learn about how the Cabinet works and what they worked on during those two terms of office. Pretty cool. Next you walk through the Time Line area. 8 sections giving an overview of every year President Clinton was in office. Underneath the overhead display for each year is a binder for each month. Inside the binder is his schedule for each day. So we were able to look up what President Clinton was doing on the days that Devin and Becca were born. They thought that was pretty great.
The 3rd (and last) floor has a reproduction of the Oval Office as it was when he was in office. That was a pretty amazing thing to see. You aren't allowed to walk through it, but it has several open doorways you can look through and a set of windows behind the desk. It was a cross between being there and a stage set. At the opposite end of the floor was a section about the lifestyle and personality of the first family. Ball Gowns, china, state gifts, things of that nature. And there is a biographical collection of personal items from the Clinton's as well. There is also a temporary art exhibit and a collection of displays that discusses his policies and his programs... All kinds of things. Except his indiscretions. No Blue Dresses were in evidence.
Timmy was bored to tears, but the girls really seemed to enjoy it. We had some difficult questions to answer about the changes from the Clinton years to the Bush years. We tried to answer honestly but without flavoring it with our opinions. It was difficult to see the difference in how President Clinton was viewed by people vs. how President Bush is perceived. Of course the end was not anyone's highest hour, but there's a huge difference between being slutty and the whole world thinking you have rocks for brains.
So we finished up there and headed to Taco Bueno for lunch... cause I didn't get enough of that in Texas. lol... And then off to meet Marc at the movie theater. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was actually a lot of fun. The animation is great. The story actually takes up after the three movies that were released in the 80's. Not bad for a kid's movie and I thought it was very cool to take my son to see a follow up to the movies I took my cousin to way back then.
Monday everyone slept in recovering from the weekend.
Tuesday saw Timmy, Becca, Dave and I heading to Chuck E. Cheese. I hate, loath and despise that place, but as with most kids, mine love it. (Devin sat this one out. She enjoyed some big girl time alone at home. Fostering some independence and checking her ability to follow rules and behave appropriately while home alone.) Timmy has been wanting to go to the Chuckesters Place for a while now. He has been earning "Brownie Points" for about 3 months to go. I'm real proud of the effort he made to get there. It was as horrible as ever but he and Becca had a blast playing and I'll be darned if they didn't scarf up that nasty, blah cheese pizza. Go figure.
After we were done, Becca headed to work with Dave for the afternoon. It was something that she have been wanting to do for a while now. So Timmy and I hit the party store for birthday party supplies and then went to Wal-Mart for some groceries. As we were walking into Party City, he reaches into his mouth and pulls out his tooth! He lost his first tooth! Pretty exciting day for my little man. Getting party stuff just added to his bliss. Cars will be the theme, of course. He is going to be 6 and all little boys right now seem to be all about Cars. Some big boys too. lol.
Today, after Timmy blissfully found a dollar left by the Tooth Fairy we got ready to go on our adventure today. The Clinton Library and lunch, then to the movies to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dave took the day off work to go with us and it actually went pretty well.
The Clinton Presidential Library has an ugly reputation for looking like a trailer (Mobile Home). Its actually a very clean, artistic, modern design on the outside and inside is a cross between contemporary and traditional. I quite liked it. For the 5 of us to go, it was only 20.00, so it was an affordable family day trip too. Its set up so that you enter a ground level where you go through security and then pay your admission. Up and escalator to the second floor where there is a theater with an introductory film. It gives a good overview and then you get to go to the Cabinet Room. A complete reproduction of the Cabinet room when he was in office. There are about 6 touch screen monitors you can use to learn about how the Cabinet works and what they worked on during those two terms of office. Pretty cool. Next you walk through the Time Line area. 8 sections giving an overview of every year President Clinton was in office. Underneath the overhead display for each year is a binder for each month. Inside the binder is his schedule for each day. So we were able to look up what President Clinton was doing on the days that Devin and Becca were born. They thought that was pretty great.
The 3rd (and last) floor has a reproduction of the Oval Office as it was when he was in office. That was a pretty amazing thing to see. You aren't allowed to walk through it, but it has several open doorways you can look through and a set of windows behind the desk. It was a cross between being there and a stage set. At the opposite end of the floor was a section about the lifestyle and personality of the first family. Ball Gowns, china, state gifts, things of that nature. And there is a biographical collection of personal items from the Clinton's as well. There is also a temporary art exhibit and a collection of displays that discusses his policies and his programs... All kinds of things. Except his indiscretions. No Blue Dresses were in evidence.
Timmy was bored to tears, but the girls really seemed to enjoy it. We had some difficult questions to answer about the changes from the Clinton years to the Bush years. We tried to answer honestly but without flavoring it with our opinions. It was difficult to see the difference in how President Clinton was viewed by people vs. how President Bush is perceived. Of course the end was not anyone's highest hour, but there's a huge difference between being slutty and the whole world thinking you have rocks for brains.
So we finished up there and headed to Taco Bueno for lunch... cause I didn't get enough of that in Texas. lol... And then off to meet Marc at the movie theater. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was actually a lot of fun. The animation is great. The story actually takes up after the three movies that were released in the 80's. Not bad for a kid's movie and I thought it was very cool to take my son to see a follow up to the movies I took my cousin to way back then.