Indy Trip

Last weekend we went to Indianapolis for a babymoon/Jason's birthday/our anniversary. We contemplated going on a fancier vacation, but decided against spending the money on something like that. Our weekend away was definitely worth it! Our awesome friend Joanna house/dog-sat for us, which was a huge help. We love our precious pup, but it was nice to get away from him for a few days!

Friday night we went to a dinner theatre called Beef and Boards to see Cinderella. We were about the only people there in our age group...everyone else was families with little-girls-turned-princess, or people that have AARP cards. But, all that aside, it was fun. The food was very good, and the show was pretty funny. The two step-sisters were played by (very manly) men, and they stole the show, hands down. The show was pretty short, only about an hour and a half including the intermission. I missed some of the "classic" parts of Cinderella, like the mice and their "Cinderelly" song, but it was a good summary of the whole story in such a short amount of time.

We stayed at the Marriot downtown in Indy, which was really close to most things we wanted to do. It was a lovely hotel, and the staff there were great to work with and very helpful. The only bummer was that their pool was broken and we had to go across the alley to swim at a neighboring hotel if we wanted to. Other than that, though, the hotel was very nice and was a great getaway. The bed was suuuper comfy and squishy, and we could have probably slept all day if let ourselves! We also ordered room service for the first time in my life, and had a great pizza at midnight!

On Saturday, our friends Courtney and Matt joined us for a morning at the zoo. I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of the 4 of us together, but there are still some good ones.

Jason got to touch a tiger!

We all got to touch sharks (for real!)

Courtney wasn't super keen on the idea of touching a shark :)

Mr. Shark had a booger.

Our first picture actually together!

The zoo also had an orchid exhibit, which was amazing to see. Jason and I have a current fascination with orchids since we have started taking care of one in our own house and haven't killed it yet!

There are a zillion more zoo pictures, but I won't bore you to death. After the zoo, we all went to Friday's and pigged out big time. Jason got sung to for his birthday (I didn't have my camera, bummer), and we all ate a huge dessert of strawberry shortcake. Yum!

After a nice long nap and a short swim, Jason and I decided to go to the IMAX theatre around the corner from our hotel. It was beautiful out, so we walked there...unfortunately for us we did not check the weather forecast before we left! We enjoyed seeing Pirates of the Caribbean 4 in 3D on IMAX, but did NOT enjoy the severe thunderstorm that greeted us when we came out! Luckily for us, Jason had a whopping $6 with him, which just barely covered a taxi ride 3 blocks back to our hotel in the midst of a horrible storm. Kudos to the hotel for calling us a cab when I called them to ask about a shuttle to get us back, which they didn't have. We got back to the hotel and enjoyed a yummy room service pizza late at night. 

Jason by the pond at the Art Museum

Sunday morning we slept in nice and late, then checked out of our hotel by 11:00. We went to the Indy art museum, which had beautiful outdoor gardens that we got to walk through. They also had a great exhibit that Jason really wanted to see called "Hard Truths: The art of Thornton Dial." The art was made by a black man who started creating in his 60's. All of his art is reflective of the race struggle or his experiences growing up poor in the deep south. The cool part is that his art is similar to the style that Jason does. They use "found objects" and basically garbage to create an amazing inspirational piece of art. Jason felt both inspired and frustrated when he left, but it was a great exhibit nonetheless. The rest of the art museum was pretty anti-climactic for me, but I'm not a huge art fiend. Plus I was exhausted from the day before, and really did not want to walk around all day. But, I survived, and Jason loved the whole thing being the artist that he is. 

We came home Sunday afternoon, and I slept the entire car ride, which I definitely needed! We both enjoyed having Monday off work as well, and spent the day working around the house and relaxing. It was a great long-weekend vacation!