I love my kids very very very much… BUT – when Laurie and I have the opportunity to ship the kiddies off to one of the sets of grandparents for a weekend, you bet we’re going to take advantage of that.
So, this past weekend we did just that. My mom and dad wanted to have the kids and Laurie met them in Peoria Friday late afternoon. They visited Tanner’s Orchard for a few hours before heading back to Monmouth for the rest of the weekend. One of the things the kids really look forward to when when they go to my parent’s house for a weekend is to visit the Maple City Candy Company. Although, I am quite impressed with how little they actually brought home (but, then again… my dad is a dentist… so, there might have been some restrictions on how much they could buy).
Anyway… Laurie and I started off our weekend by going out for supper Friday night to Ming’s (it was just “ok”) then we walked around Eastland Mall (we actually bought NOTHING… that’s pretty amazing for us, or rather, me).
After sleeping in Saturday morning I spent about 3-hours reading on the front porch while Laurie went on a power walk with Tumnus then went to Gold’s to workout (she’s amazing). I went on a long bike ride (my legs are still hurting) up and down our Constitution Trail. I grabbed a quick shower and lunch then took off for a couple hours of browsing at Barnes & Noble and then a visit at a local camera store (no purchases today… that’s usually only done online) to talk shop with a couple of guys that work there. While I was out and about Laurie took a well deserved nap. After coming home I sat on the front porch (again) and read for another hour while enjoying some cheese and Barefoot White Zinfandel.
After Laurie’s nap and my snack, Laurie and I went to the historic Illinois Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Children’s Home (we were at what is now called Normandy Village) to take pictures of her and I. (The pictures at the beginning of this entry were taken that night.) Luckily a few of the pictures turned out… I pulled a boneheaded mistake… I had left the camera in “full manual” mode after taking a few pictures earlier in the day and forgot to change it back to “aperture priority” (my preferred setting 95% of the time)… which answered the question of why my shutter speed was sooooooooooo slow while I was using my flash & diffuser. (Ok, so most of that last paragraph really wasn’t interesting to any of you). The bad thing was I didn’t figure out what I had done until I was reviewing the pictures on the computer after we got back home later that evening… I was NOT a happy camper for making that mistake. The late afternoon light was perfect for pictures (with just a small amount of fill light from my flash/diffuser). Oh well… I got a few that worked well. I didn’t shave before we went and it was noticeable in the pictures anyway.
After we got done taking pictures, we went to Lucca Grill in downtown Bloomington for an excellent supper… we’ve been here in Bloomington/Normal for YEARS and had never eaten there. Glad we did finally J We’ll be back.
So, that’s it… can’t say we did anything REALLY special… but it was just a nice relaxing “date-like” weekend for us.
I had to be at church early Sunday morning due to the choir singing, but got home in good time to see the start of the Bears game. Had to listen to most of it on the radio in the car, though, since we had to go meet my parents back in Peoria to pick up the kids. I’m glad I didn’t have to suffer through watching the end of the game… I probably would have thrown something at the TV!!! (i.e. the Bears lost in overtime).
Ok, enough for tonight.. it’s after midnight and Mondays are always hard enough for me to get going. First day of Fall tomorrow… L sad to see summer go, but I have a feeling we’re going to see some nice color this fall on trees.
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