A New Gem

Yesterday I spent the day with the fam. They can be pretty cool to hang out with. We started off by going out to breakfast at one of the little diners here in town. We usually go to The Wagon Wheel but they were packed with people waiting to be seated. Yikes. When I first found that diner a year ago it was pretty much a regular crowd of older folks who have lived in McCordsville since before this recent population boom. We didn't want to wait (or sit in the smoking section--this town is a little behind the times), so we made the journey up the road to another small town diner, called Robbie's. It's nice to sit down with my husband and our boys, slurp my coffee and eat my vegetarian egg-white omelet, and watch their faces covered in syrup and smiles as we talk about the things they find important in their broadening worlds. Breakfast was a hit, up until Willie overate and threw up in front of the cash register. It happens....always. My kids are vomiters. Unfortunately we haven't quite gotten the hang of making it to the restrooms first. So, I gleefully (ha!) cleaned up the mess while my older two ran back to the table, announcing to the entire restaurant not once, but twice, "Willie threw up!!" Forks fell. That's breakfast for the Ongs. Overall, though, breakfast was a hit and we'll go back.

After breakfast we headed to Fort Benjamin Harrison. There is a state park with walking trails in the woods, which is one of my most favorite things in the entire world. We started out on our 2 mile trek and to my absolute glee, I found hanging vines! It has been YEARS since I've gotten to swing on a vine and I couldn't wait to jump on. At first the boys were a little unsure about swinging off a vine, but once they saw me launch myself up, they couldn't wait to follow suit. Matt quickly got the hang of it and A.J. did after that. Willie never really quite got his feet off the ground, but he wasn't scared to try. Aaron even got a bit of a swing in. I quit after I nearly impaled myself with the vine around my Achilles tendon. It left a bruise but I show it proudly. It's my Tarzan injury! We spent a good ten minutes playing with the vines before we headed onward with our journey.

The trails were buzzing with people with dogs. The boys had to stop each person with a pup so they could give a quick pet on the head. Sometimes I think that was annoying to people who were trying to get on with their trip, but overall it was a good day to see lots of dogs. We even saw a couple deer run right in front of us and off into the trees. I wanted to kick myself time and again for not bringing a camera.

After the kids kept up for over 2.1 miles we threw them back in the car and drove around the park to see what else was there. I was surprised to find more trails, a sledding hill, a couple playgrounds, and my favorite part: the natural history museum and horse stables. Aaron and I are planning to go back this weekend and take a guided tour. For twenty dollars each, we get an hour long horse ride. Sounds fun to me! They also offer pony rides for children under 16, and it's cheap.

The natural history museum was really fun. It's small, probably around 2000 square feet or less, but it was filled with things like stuffed animals (taxidermist stuffed, not beanie baby stuffed!), war artifacts from both World Wars and Vietnam, POW artifacts from Nazi Germans (I saw a real swastika. I mean, I'm not pro-Nazi or anything, but do you realize how awesome that is to see it?). We measured our arms up against the wall and compared them with the painted wingspans of birds (my arms have the same span as a Turkey Vulture!) and then we compared our heights with that of Elk, black bears, moose, and a few other things.

Finally, before we went home we let the kids run off whatever leftover energy they had on the playground and then rolling down the sledding hill. They were exhausted when we came home. We spent the entire day there and still didn't get to do everything. We'll be going back, soon!!