Friday, March 1, 2013

Adventure Week

After a week of three little sick girls and with only a week left of having a extra vehicle I decided to be an adventurous, ambitious and exciting mom in what I dubbed:

Adventure Week!

Now, this took place a few weeks ago and I am just getting around to writing about it so I do forget somethings, but the highlights I remember. 

Day 1.

 A morning full of errands, I usually only do one more maybe two errands in a row because it is a hastle getting three little ones in and out the of van and their carseats BUT ambitios Mom does not care, she ventures out across town for a bunch of errands. 
Stop #1: drop off lunch for Mike who had forgotten it at home. 
Stop #2: Drive across town to take the bumbo back to the Twin Club office.
Stop #3: WestCoast Kids to buy a carseat, that is right in addition to being adventuerous I also made an executive decision. I let K&J walk and told them to stay close and obey and put Cosette on my back, they behaved so well and enjoyed helping me choose a carseat colour. 
Stop #4: Ikea. As you may or may not know there are few buggies with 2 seats and none with three so K&J sat in the buggy and Cosette went on my back again. Our successful shopping trip ended right before lunch and I figured the drive home/arriving home would be not so fun with hungry bellies so we grabbed hotdogs and ate at Ikea.  


While eating I was texting my sister to tell her about my new ambitious self and she told me that the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra had a mini-concert at the library near our home at 2:00, I figured all this running around would make my girls tired and they would nap long past then so figured we would not make it out. I was wrong. We drove home and the girls went for nap/quiet time while I tidied up and checked my email. C woke up shortly before 2 and ambitious me said, why not go to the concert with three little children who might be grumpy and noisy? And I did, and they weren't. We arrived after the concert had began and lucked out being able to sneak into a seat where the girls could see, K&J were mesmerized by the two violin players who made up the concert and C was very happy in her stroller with a cracker or two. After the concert we went to look at books and headed home to make some supper. 


Day 2. 

Recently my Mom sent me this list of the top 15 playgrounds in Calgary, so after a unmemorable morning when we were probably doing groceries or something else like that with no photo evidence and nap/quiet time I decided to hit up the park closest to us. On our way over we stopped at Staples to pick up some printing. The park was pretty awesome, it would be nicer without snow (as most parks are) and with a baby swing but it was still fun and had lots of different things to play on.






Day 3.

Wednesday found us a friends house all morning, home for nap/quiet time and out somewhere I can't remember in the afternoon, or maybe we stayed home? You'll never know.

Day 4. 

This was one of my favourite days, we were up early so we had lots of morning time to get somewhere. I was out of ideas in the morning and was trying to think of something fun, indoors and low-cost. There are not tons of options other than walking around the mall or library where we had just been. Mike and I had been downtown for his grad recently and had walked through the new and improved Devonian Gardens, there is a park and fish ponds and lots to look at so I figured we would give it a shot. I didn't want to figure out where to park downtown so brave adventurous me decided to take the train. I packed some snacks and we drove over to the C-train station. After a little bit of drama and loading and unloading twice because I parked in the wrong area we get on the train. The girls were pretty excited to go on the train, it would have been enough of an adventure on its own! The playground at the Devonian gardens is designed for older kids and even the 'ladder' up to the slide made me nervous, there was not lots they could do at the park but it would be fun for older kids. We walked around and checked out the plants and carvings, they enjoyed being able to explore and walk around somewhere new, the fish ponds were a big hit, they could have watched the fish all day. We hopped back on the train and headed home for lunch/nap/quiet time. Right before supper we had some time to burn while waiting for supper to be ready, generally I stay inside and try to entertain/clean ect during this time but that is not good enough for adventure week so we went out the park out front for a bit while waiting.




Day 5. 

We spent the morning with other mommas and their kids at our church mommas group, I can't remember what we did in the afternoon, I think we may have just stayed home and gotten ready for company coming.


Adventure week taught me to do new things, be adventurous and it almost always pays off. I like being a home-body sometimes (and have no choice often) but getting out and exploring is lots of fun. Also, sometimes I get in my head that I have to wait for summer and warm weather to get out of the house and do things other than shopping but between bundling up and being a little creative there is lots to do in the winter as well. Also, the girls don't care how extravagant a trip is, they enjoy a walk to the park, a train ride, a trip to the zoo, the library, grocery shopping etc etc, so no more excuses, just get out and enjoy being with your kids!

What do you do when cabin fever hits in the winter? Have you gone on any particularly adventurous trips lately? Ever done something with you kids you weren't sure how well you could pull off?