Vacation Day 5 . .and then some . . The zoo, unpacking, Playworld and Mother's Day!

This post will wrap up our last day in Toledo as well as the rest of the weekend!  Feel free to catch up on Days One, Two, Three and Four before reading this post!

Day 5 was our last full day of away from home vacation and we planned a full day of fun!  We learned on Wednesday to not take the kids to the continental breakfast . .. there are way too many choices and too many distractions for them.  Instead, we gave them their favorite - PopTarts and Chocolate Milk while Darryl and I took turns getting breakfast from downstairs (don't worry, we brought them up some yummy cereal and donuts!)  This made life much easier and gave us time to actually eat :-)  Once we were done with breakfast, we packed, loaded up and headed off to the Toledo Zoo for the day.  Now, we are zoo people - we love to go see the animals and all the fun stuff and we had heard great things about this zoo.  It was the perfect day for walking around the zoo, and walk we did HA!

Now, I'm going to keep it real.  The Toledo Zoo is not on our list of favorite zoos.  There really are not that many animals compared to many other, even small, zoos.  Add to that the Lions, Hippos, Rino's, Wolves, and Elephants were not on display due to renovations; they have no big bears, zebras, camels and so forth and it really is not worth the price that is charged.  I did something I rarely do - I contacted the zoo after the fact through Facebook and stated what I thought - I was not surprised to see many people agree with me.  Don't get me wrong - we had FUN!  The boys loved the zoo and had no idea what wasn't there - they had a Sloth Bear lick the glass in front of their noses; a gorilla the size of king kong walk by in front of them and fell in love with the Aquarium and the fish!!!  I kept hearing these cute words, "Mom, I want to see more aminals" (yes, that spelling error is on purpose!) We did walk the whole zoo and came to the children's area at the end - there were the cute masks that you see in the pictures that the boys loved and then a little play area that was just great.  The boys loved the slides!!!  It was really, truly a great day!

Once we left the zoo, we had one last stop and I did not get any photos!!  Boyds Retro Candy Store is fantastic.  It's a little store on a street corner just off of I-75 packed full of just about every kind of candy you can think of.  The boys had so much fun!  From the moment we walked in, it was a treat.  They boys were each given their own basket and we let them pick out what ever they wanted.  They also have a cooler filled with all kinds of Soda's - all in glass bottles :-)  Afterwards I wished I had taken my camera to capture the boys picking out candy - it was just so cute!!!  You can also order online so if you are looking for a specific candy for a party - check out their site!

One we got our fill of candy, we headed on our way with one final stop to make.  IKEA.  Yes, you read that right :-)  There is an IKEA store that I have never had a chance to go to; since it was on our way home we stopped.  We went right to the children's area because I was looking for ideas for the boys rooms - in the showroom there are areas set up to look like kids room and the boys found toys and fell in love.  At one point, Josh laid down on a bed and told me that he needed to sleep there - he wasn't going home HA!  Next time, I want to go back without kids so that my husband and I can really look at some things and make some plans.  They have some great stuff and we even have some Christmas gifts picked out for the kids.  Do you know what else we did?  We ate dinner there.  Let me say . . it is good and it is cheap!! 

Once we had finished up, we headed home.  All we did when we got home was put the kids to bed, unload, and crash HA!  It always feels good to come home doesn't it? 

The last few days of our vacation - or staycation - were pretty simple.  On Friday morning, we went and got our dog.  She smelled pretty since we had her groomed (the kids were SOOO disappointed when we got home on Thursday and China wasn't home!!).  Then Darryl worked in the yard and I unpacked, did laundry, and went grocery shopping!!!  Saturday was a nice family day - we took the boys to Playworld and they had a blast.  Again, I chose not to take my camera - I wanted to be able to just have fun without a camera around my neck :-)  We were there for over 2 hours and the boys could have played longer.  For fun, we got Chinese to go and ate at home - it was sooooo good!!!

To end the week with Mother's Day was perfect!  Darryl "let" me sleep in as long as I wanted because he knows I love to just lay in bed.  Shoot, I didn't even turn on the TV - I just went in and out of sleep :-)  Once I got up, he fixed a great breakfast and totally took care of the kids too.  I even snuck outside and sat in the sun, reading, for over an hour . . it was so quiet out there HA!  Later in the afternoon we took the kids for ice cream and then Darryl took care of making dinner and he completely cleaned up the kitchen.  It was the perfect day off!

So, did we have fun on vacation with two toddlers?  The answer is YES!!!  I have already had people make comments to me about how crazy we must be but our kids were perfect.  It was overall an easy trip to take with them and they are already asking when we can go back to a hotel again.  Oh, and every night, Nate crawls into Josh's bed while we say bedtime prayers and then tells us he wants to sleep there.  Maybe putting them into one room isn't such a bad idea . . .HA!