We had grand plans for a wonderful Valentine's Weekend away. We met my parents in Kansas City, where they were going to play with the kids, and we were going to do dinner, movies, shopping -- just get away. We secured great rates at the Westin using hotwire.com -- the waterfall in the photos below are from the hotel lobby.

Friday afternoon we all arrived at essentially the same time. We were pretty hungry, so we went to Fritz's, a cool restaurant that delivers the food to each table via train. The kids loved it! As an adult, however, I'd recommend the milkshakes only, because the food was pretty horrible. After dinner, we went to Fairy Tale Village in the Crown Center. It was a free exhibit that was kind of like a stage set. There were probably 10-15 different nursery rhyme "homes" set up in this room. Each "home" was interactive and perfectly kid sized. So much so that I couldn't keep up with the kids as I ducked through kid-sized doors and crossed kid-sized bridges. I eventually gave up and just stood by the door to make sure they didn't escape unseen. The kids thought it was fabulous!

After Fairy Tale Village, the kids went swimming with my parents while Jon and I went to see Avatar. The movie was great! But it went downhill after that. At first I thought it might be the food, but it quickly became evident that the "bug" Amara had on Thursday had made its way to my belly. By Saturday morning, the bug had bit Jon as well. The two of us spent Saturday sleeping and trying to nurse down Gatorade and Saltines while the kids continued to explore and have fun with my parents.

Saturday afternoon, Dominic decided his belly hurt, too, and opted to join us. I think he just missed us, which isn't all bad either. We fell asleep watching Olympic speed skating. On Sunday morning, Dominic asked immediately, "Can we watch more fast guys on ice?" I was tickled that he ASKED to watch the Olympics instead of cartoons -- a little protege? We'll fan the flames of the Olympics spirit.

Sunday morning we all felt markedly better -- weak and hungry, but not dizzy and queazy. My parents had set up a scavenger hunt in their hotel room. The kids loved it. Immediately upon finding their treasure, they asked to go on another one, and were quite disappointed when they discovered we had to leave.

Before we left, however, we had to stop at the escalators. It cracks me up how kids are drawn to the moving stairs. They easily rode these things for 15 minutes, and would have continued if we hadn't physically blocked the "up" and prevented them from riding again. Dominic even tried to juke my dad out of position and sneak past him. Funny stuff.


All in all, a pretty expensive sick bed, and not at all the way we intended to spend the weekend. I'm glad the kids had my parents there though, and that it worked out well for them! They'd have been miserable (and so would have we) if we were all stuck sick at home trying to care for the kids when we could hardly stand upright ourselves!

So...that was our Valentine's Weekend! At least we were with the ones we love!