ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

Today's events included a trip to Crown Center with Andy's brother, Dan, and his family. Crown Center has always been very special to me because it's very magical and has lots of different areas, all beautifully decorated at Christmas.

The day started with Payton leaving a bit earlier than the rest of our family because she was going to ice skate with them. Andy and I can't ice skate (or ski) after attempts to do both. I don't even mean that we can't do fancy tricks...I personally can't even stand up on skates (or get anywhere on skis). Maybe we'll conquer those things someday soon but it wasn't going to be Thursday, December 28.

Some pics from ice skating

Holding on to the wall...


Payton letting go of the wall at the opening...


That child in the middle in the blue coat is our 3 (almost 4) year old nephew, Joey. Yeah, he puts us to shame.


While we waited for them to finish up ice skating, we explored the fountains and things in the area.



Then it was off to Kaleidoscope which is also part of the Crown Center shopping area. It is a free children's museum-ish place put on by Hallmark. The tickets are free but you do have to get tickets for one of the times they have and then you go in for 40 minutes and do as much as you can. This was my favorite fieldtrip to go on as a kid and I always thought I would take my kids there when I was older and we've had a chance to do that a couple of times.

Blake in front...


Making a drawing for a puzzle...


Turning the machine to cut the picture into puzzle pieces...


Silly mirror...


In the blacklight room decorating masks...




Making a greeting card...


Another silly mirror...


After that, we headed for lunch as it was getting to be late afternoon and none of us had really eaten all day. We headed for the restaurant called Fritz's which is a new addition since I've been at Crown Center but I had been to the old location elsewhere in the city. When I was Captain of the Safety Patrol in 5th grade (!), we got to all go to the old location and thought it was so much fun. I had mentioned to Andy that I'd love to take the kids there sometime so I was thrilled to see they had a Crown Center location which is much nicer than the other.

Ok, so the thing that makes Fritz's fun is that it has trains that circle above and they deliver your food. You order your food by phone and then it arrives via train. Blake never stopped being fascinated by it. He spent the whole meal trying to work out the engineering aspects of how the train knows where to go. Some pics...

Blake and Joey in front...


Trains up above...


Then it drops off the tray of food at your table and lowers it down to you...


Ours nearly fell off...


oh, and the food is yummy too! I'm betting if you asked Blake his favorite thing all week this might be it.