Christmas in 5 Long & Wordy Acts: ACT ONE

Ritchie Christmas 2012 Act 1: Random Unplanned Getaway Surprise Trip 

…because there's plenty of time and money for that right before Christmas, right?

So, we went to Rochester for a weekend.  Now, Rochester may not scream "woohoo great fun can't wait to go" to the uninformed, but it actually does have some fun family stuff.  Yes, I'm serious.  And it's close by.  And (here's the truth now) cheaper than Hawaii.  Anyway, we were going to go over Christmas vacation when school was out, but figured there'd be lots of crowds (yes, because people flock to Rochester for Christmas fun.  well, not really).  We called the kids in sick to school and surprised 'em with the trip randomly, out of the blue, on what would have otherwise been a boring plain old Friday.  Woohoo!

Rochester has a fantastic children's Museum of Play, a definite kid favorite.  But upon arrival, Mark insisted that I should just drop them off and go shopping by myself for the day.  "Oh no, I'd much rather spend the day at a kids museum than shopping".... replied Estelle NEVER.  I was jumping for joy higher than they were.  Seeeeeeee ya!

Mark remembered to take a few photos at the Museum of Play.  As expected, Shelby loved the Dora & Diego exhibit.

But wait, what's this?  Two boys who think they're MUCH too cool to watch Dora or Diego anymore, playing with the Pirate Piggies???  Bwa ha ha!! 

So, shopping for me!  And guess what?  Rochester now has a Trader Joes!  But it does not look HALF as nice as the southern California (where we first discovered TJs) Trader Joes surrounded by palm trees and bougainvilleas.  This is a sad, gloomy little photo, compared to my blissful memories of past Trader Joes in my life.  *sigh*

And here's my sad little TJ shopping cart.  I couldn't buy any of their fresh yummy (and cheap) produce because we were staying in a hotel that evening.  But I HAD to get SOMEthing!  So, I got TJ cheerios, cookies, and curry sauce.  How's that for a good-sounding combo?  But I was still excited just to be there.  Kind of.

Rochester has one of my favorite stores, Craft Company No 6!   Lots of Christmas fun was had here!  By me.  ALONE with no kids.   Of course, being ANYwhere alone with no kids is fabulous nowadays, but shopping is extra EXTRA fabulous.  The next day on our way out of Rochester, I begged Mark to stop and turn around so I could shop JUST A LITTLE more here at my oh-so-happy place.   "Just one more thing.  Or two.  Or maybe three.  Or $173 worth..."

After my glorious shopping alone day, I was in a good enough mood that the boys were able to talk me into taking a spin with them on the Museum of Play's carousel when I arrived early to pick everyone up.  But first, I had to photograph them in this tub - look at the words, "The Lovers Tub."  CRACKS. ME. UP.  Because they're sort of anything BUT, if you know what I mean.  And especially because they pick it every time we go there and they've still never noticed the words on the side.  Goofballs.

Here's happy little No in mid-spin.

Here's not-so-happy me in mid-spin.  But seriously, I'm getting too old for this shi….I mean shtuff.

While waiting for Mark to bring the car up since it was raining, I thought I'd try and sneak in some potential Christmas card family photos.  In this one, Shelby was cut out entirely.

And in this one, we lost Noah (but Shelby popped up), and we gained a closeup of my lovely double chin and of Connor's equally lovely boogies.  Marvelous.  So much for our Christmas card photos.  Oh well, I tried.

What else does Rochester have?  It has a Longhorn Steakhouse!  Here's Shelby doing a hands-up "Oh yeah!  Oh yeah!" there.  And here's Noah ... well, here's Noah with food stuck on his teeth.  Kinda makes you want to get in your car right now and drive over there, doesn't it?

We stayed overnight in a hotel advertising an indoor water-park, and thought we'd gotten ourselves quite a bargain.  But NO, it was a creepy little hotel and we had to pay an extra FIFTY BUCKS for the water park!!!  Look at this creepy hallway - Connor and Noah (oblivious to the creepiness) ran ahead and they reminded me of the creepy hotel scene from The Shining with the 2 creepy kids.  Did I just say my kids were creepy?  Well, I DO wish they had higher hotel standards…

Anyway, we were captive there at the hotel and we'd stupidly hyped it up ahead of time before our arrival to the kids, so we had no choice but to pay the stinkin' 50 bucks.  And THEN Mark and I had to pay another $15 for the privilege of sitting there watching them for hours.  How happy do I look about that?  Bah humbug.

But speaking of happy - we had the pool and stuff all to ourselves (because, like in The Shining, the hotel was creepily deserted) and the kids had a grand time.  Still not worth $65 bucks. *grumble grumble*

I know, I know, Shelby really needs a new swimsuit, but I just get too much joy from seeing her swimsuit wedgies.

Here's Shelby performing water aerobics or something (look in the background), while I read my magazine and realize that this pedicure color really doesn't look good on my chubby toes.

Fortunately, the swimming knocked 'em out enough that we could make them sleep in the horrid hide-a-bed couch-thing without having to bribe them.  Yesssss!

The next day, we discovered that Rochester has a pretty great children's science museum!

The kids can literally climb the walls.  I wonder what it would cost to get one of these installed in my living room?!?

Here they are digging for dinosaur bones.  Noah dug for about….oh, FIVE SECONDS before proclaiming, "This is hard work!" and quit.  Mark and I fear nearly every day he's going to be living with us when he's 30, playing video games in his underwear and scratching himself a lot.

To be honest, museums aren't my thing and I get bored (and subsequently obnoxious) VERY quickly.  I'm just not a why or how person.  I'm an it-is-what-it-is-so-just-deal-with-it-dammit person.  I entertained myself by taking random photos like this one, and then told Connor the mammoth skeleton bum was going to rain poop on him if he didn't hurry up and finish digging up the @#^&#!& dinosaur bones. 

I do a pretty good job on this blog of documenting exactly WHY my kids will never nominate me for Mother of the Year, don't I?

And speaking of that nomination, Connor discovered he liked sitting (as opposed to standing) on the vibrating earthquake-shaking-machine-thing.  Ummm.  This fact will probably greatly embarrass you in a few years, Connor.  And yes, I will remind you of it then.  In front of your prom date.

In the Knex building area, I, being how I fabulously am (extremely left-brained and orderly), neatly constructed a teepee-thing precisely according the rules and diagram. 

Noah, however, constructed a self-designed prison for his fingers with a finger-chopping block.  I honestly don't know where this kid came from.  Noah's not even REMOTELY like Mark or me (though we do think he has a lot of his Grandpa Davis' mischievousness and contrariness).  But I guess that's what makes Noah endlessly entertaining to us!

ARGGGG!  Hello rolling and spinning balls and tracks, meet my autistic son Connor who is now going to insist on playing with you ALL BLASTED AFTERNOON (look at his grin).

I, being bored again, told Shelby I'd pay her $1.00 to carry my handbag around.  And it WAS somewhat entertaining watching her, given that it weighs probably twice as much as she does.  And I never did pay her the dollar, so it was definitely a bargain as far as cheap entertainment (child labor?) goes.

Shelby's favorite activity at this museum was this dam-building sand thing.  We have sand and buckets at home that she could do the EXACT SAME PLAY with, but noooooo, why do it at home when she can do it somewhere else that her parents have TO PAY for her to do it, am I right?

Noah thought Sue the T-Rex, the special $14 million dollar exhibit on loan from Chicago, was fabulous.  I have about 20 photos of him posing in various ways with Sue.  I'll only post two.  You can thank me later (like next week when you're doing reading all of my Christmas Acts). 

This is Connor's expected eye-rolling response to Sue the $14 million dollar T-Rex.  No respect, I tell ya!

My usually-much-braver-than-her-big-brothers little Shelby was terrified of Sue:

But I did catch her a while later brave enough to to look through this dinosaur head and thought it was absolutely hysterical.  Because I'm sure all fashion-forward dinos wore flowers and sparkly light-up shoes.

And of course we can't leave any kids attraction without buying a toy.  Shelby, despite being terrified of Sue the T-Rex, naturally picked out…wait for it….a T-Rex.  And naturally, named it "Baby T-Rex Baby Loves."

Noah, naturally, picked out a hand-grabber thing and dubbed it his "great nose-picking machine."  And naturally, it was broken 5 minutes later.  I guess his boogies were fighters...

We went back to Longhorn Steakhouse again, too!  Yup, it's that good.  No food photos for you (too busy snarfing it down), but I do have one of Noah demonstrating his newest invention, the "fry saber."

On the way out of Rochester, we stopped at this cool bench in the artsy district (near my beloved Craft Co 6) and managed to get a few pretty decent family photos.  Too bad I totally forgot we had these photos when I did our Christmas cards and used a summer one of kids in swimsuits instead.  Christmas card fail.  But hey!  Since the Mayans were wrong about the world ending last week, maybe I'll use it for our 2013 card.