Staycation Tuesday

I was pretty excited for Tuesday on our Staycation for different reasons than all the other days - and most noteably because Neal declared it my vacation day! I ended up opting for only a half day so that I could join the rest of the fam in the afternoon, but I sure loved my relaxing morning!

First, Neal planned to take Meredith to a movie. Movies are not something Meredith is ever excited about - she thinks they are too loud and might be scary, but since Neal loves movies (since he was a Radio/Television/Film major in college, it is not a stretch to say the guy literally majored in movies!) he is hopeful he can get her over this phobia. We didn't talk up the morning's activity much, he just told her it was a surprise and they could eat M&Ms! So they dropped Jillian off with Bubbie and headed to the theater. As soon as they go there, he could tell she was getting nervous and then once they were in the lobby, she started clutching Pinky for dear life and looked terrified. Luckily, they hadn't bought tickets and he had a back-up plan. So, they abandoned the movies and headed to Founder's Plaza in Grapevine to watch the planes take-off and land. They talked about where all the planes might be going, what might be inside the UPS plane (she decided it was full of Peanut Butter, I believe!), and picked lots of flowers! After that, they headed back to Arlington to hit the mall play area, the carousel, and the food court for a snack. Even though it wasn't what Neal originally planned, I don't think Meredith could have planned anything better.

When I joined back up with my family, we headed to Putt-Putt. This was probably the activity Meredith was the most excited for! Both girls were really excited to see all the life-sized animal statues and just being outside. Meredith tried out her hand at miniature golf, but got a little frustrated with all the obstacles, we tried to talk her through it, telling her to just "bounce" it off the sides. She got really excited and said "I can bounce it!" Then picked up the ball and threw it onto the green. Oh well. Even though she wasn't really playing, Jillian was pretty excited to steal all of our golf balls.

Future golf pro!
Good thing we weren't taking this game seriously - the balls never stayed where we hit them very long!
Meredith taking us literally when we suggested we "bounce" the ball.
Meredith was excited to pose in her zebra dress with the zebra. Jillian was not. Maybe she was wishing she had a zebra dress on.

Next we headed inside for ice cream and then to play lots and lots of games! We won enough tickets to get a green stuffed monkey and two lolli-pops. I was feeling kind of bad that all of it was really for Meredith, but I felt better about it (and worse about my parenting skills) when Jillian stole one of them from Meredith, popped it in her mouth and wouldn't give it up!