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?

Fall Fest Fun

This weekend the area was packed with festivals and celebrations. While I wanted to hit up both Chili fest, I opted to spend a girl date with Nikki and grab chili at Panera instead followed by an evening with my husband.

Friday, however, we did go to Fall Fest. This festival (previously called October fest, but is no longer held in October thus the name change) used to be crafts and a carnival.
Now it is a carnival and some crafts, but mostly things that are not nearly as enjoyable. Except for fair food. MMmmmm




For those of you who know Lissa, she is a professional eater I believe. Where it goes I don't know, because she can eat for all eternity I believe and never changes in pant size. I'm jealous. According to her, she has to fill up her entire body and not just her stomach, also, her method of exercising is sitting on the couch eating Doritos. I think I have been misinformed how this weight loss thing works.

2 Slices of Pizza, Snow cone, corn dog, milkshake and some of my funnel cake. Where does it all go?!

Lissa and I both tried our hand at darts. She won a dolphin.


I on the other hand, almost took out the carnie and Nikki with one dart after missing multiple times and opted to let Chris take over. Thanks to his mad dart throwing skills I obtained a Care Bear.



Jess and Chris were able to hang as well prior to going to a party. Nikki was also there, but every photo I took was blurry for some reason, possibly due to her dodging the camera. I believe she has more points in dodge than the average tank class...

Future Mr. & Mrs. Garant

June 21st*
I hosted a wedding shower for my best friend and her future husband. So I thought I would post the pictures. In case there were some people who don't have Facebook. I don't know how good of a job I did, it seemed to go well and I have made LOTS of mental notes as to what I did right and wrong.

I am very happy that I brought fruits and veggies in ziplock bags, because after it was all over there was food left so I packed it back in the bags for people to take home.

The hotel had the 3-tier serving platter and now I wish I had one.

I tried cutting the fruit in ways I never have before which made it very difficult, but it seemed to work out ok! I wish there was an easier way to cut cantaloupe.





Nikki found some cute green and pink buckets that matched my serving tray at Target in the dollar section. I did not know what I was going to do with them, but now I am wishing I had gotten more cause they are very useful. We used 2 small ones for flatware and the other two held grapes on the table for people to munch on. We got a larger one which we used for ice.

The arrangements were easy to make and I love them. Unfortunately, the weeping cherry branches are only sold in spring. I was going to make more, but when I went to get the blossoms, they were all gone! Guess I'll wait till next year. In the end I think they were happy and I had tons of fun. I wish I could do this more often. And now I have neat serving trays and platters and such to use!