Vacation Part 2

Indianapolis is a pretty large city. I made a list of places that sounded interesting, but we really didn't get to visit many places since the weekend was short. I guess I will just have to go back in the spring. 

Friday night we enjoyed a nice dinner and evening with the stars of our visit who are beautifully represented here:

They are pretty awesome. If you don't know them, well, it sucks to be you.

We exchanged Christmas gifts so I can now put up the wreath I made for them. 

It's a bit sad looking, but I just haven't gotten the hang of this whole wreath making thing yet (and I probably never will).

Saturday we went to one of the local malls and followed it up with lunch at P.F. Chang's (Singapore Street Noodles, yum!)

Then we took a walk about Broad Ripple which was a neat district filled with yummy sounding food and shops. Chris' favorites were The Exchange and Panda(ology) and I liked those too as well as a little place by a cafe that I cannot remember the name of, but it had adorable hand-made gifts (I got a bat keychain that was precious with his little button eyes!)

Don't these look delicious?!   Too bad they are dog treats. 

When we finally had to pull ourselves away on Sunday morning, we stopped in Cincinnati on the way home with the intent of seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Unfortunately, it was more than we thought it was (we saw the member price online, not the non-member price). So we opted to see the rest of the museum instead (as it was cheaper to see the all of the museum than to see the one exhibit.)

It wasn't as impressive as the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, but I got to watch bats fly! Bats!! 

They have a little bat flight thing where a guy lets bats loose in this screened in cage and once they wake up they fly around and he talks about bat facts. (Also peed in the kids' faces during one of his jokes and he thought the people were laughing at him; we'll let him continue to think that.)

Here are some pictures we got. Like I said, it wasn't the greatest museum, but it was a nice stop and BATS!

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit is going on till April so we may go back. If you go, let me know about it.

The museum is divided into a world and natural history museum (which was good-bats and dinosaurs!) and an American history museum (we were speed walking through it, not really our interest).

Mummy!

 The natural history museum had a section of fossils and casts of various animals followed by a recreated forest environment. 

Example: Ground Sloths. Terrifying no matter what.

What would YOU recommend for a little vacation?!  Any recommendations for Indianapolis for our return trip? Any suggestions for other quick places to visit in the area? 

What was your favorite museum to visit?