the wild adventures of Mr. Toad...

i'm feeling so much better these days...

getting my groove back, so to say...

ready to start taking on adventures again...

ready to get off the couch...

...

of course, up until Monday...

my doc thought otherwise...

and i had been restricted to "partial bedrest"...

meaning no more "up and around" than necessary...

however....

i've spent the last 4 months or so...

on the couch...

or in bed...

so this girl is ready to get out...

...

i convinced Lin that a driving tour of the VA countryside would be just the thing...

up and out...

without being up and around...

so I scoped out a spot for us to visit...

Front Royal, VA...

a cutie looking town...

with this as their website heading...

and this...

looks adorable right?

and i found out there was a great playground in the town...

the "fantasyland" playground designed by some famous playground designer...

and i even found a miniature train ride for the kids...

at a really cool looking cavern park...

of which i was hoping that once i got there I could convince Lin that it was OK to tour for a few minutes...

so off to our big day road trip we went...

....

upon entering the freeway for the hour and a half drive...

i immediately realized i was off my game a bit...

not 5 mintes into the trip...

someone from the back seat was thirsty...

i realized that i had not remembered any provisions for our daytrip...

geesh, i'm normally all over stuff like that...

so instead we got all the "healthy" that comes with a quick stop at 7-11...

you know...

powdered doughnuts...

some sort of juice in buzz lightyear cups...

water...

yeah, i think water was the healthiest thing 7-11 sells...

but once again we were off..

after about 60 or so minutes, we arrived....

can i tell you that the pictures didn't quite do Fort Royal justice...

in other words...

those pics mustive been taken on it's BEST day :)

we saw more Dollar Stores and fast food joints than i care to remember...

Lin just looked at me...

as I stared out the window in the opposite direction...

hey man...

you saw the pictures...

how was i supposed to know??

At least we did find the playground..

(right after a quick stop at Wendys for a junior bacon cheeseburger)

and i sat...

while the kids (and Lin) ran around and had fun...

and Ayden occasionally stopped by and let me snap her picture...

she felt sorry for me because Lin kept telling me to sit back down...

but then boredom would set in immediately and i'd tell her to just go ahead and play...

so i just tried to stay seated.. 

and snap pictures from afar...

 

and every now and then...

Lin and Bean would walk by...

but needless to say...

they i got bored pretty quick...

i wanted to see the caverns and the train!

incidentally...

i kept calling the cavern a tavern...

Lin told me i was thinking subliminally...

anywho..

we arrived at the train...

and after finding out that the tavern cavern was an hour long tour with 70 steps...

i got the big "no pass" for that adventure...

ahh well, maybe next time...

i knew i was pushing the whole "bed rest" thing at this point anyway...

so we ventured over to the train...

and we rung the bell...

because apparently we were the only family there to ride the train in the 45ish degree weather...

but hey...

we were there to have fun dang nabbit...

so up pulled the train...

did i mention it was miniature??

and here's the thing i love about my husband...

he never once asked if he had to ride in the little train...

he just assumed (correctly) and went with it...

the girls got to test out the "engine car" before we took off...

then we piled in and took off...

yes...

lin and i squeezed in next to them...

now Bean...

who's too young to remember our adventures from last month...

never mind last year...

has just had the experience of couch/mommy living for the last 4 months...

so she is easy to please these days...

she thought this was the cat's meow for sure...

the train took about 7 minutes to circle the track...

but since we were the only ones there...

the conductor allowed us several laps...

Bean thought this was so cool...

i was ready to get off after lap two...

but who am i to spoil our adventures...

but i *was* happy when we finally stopped...

and on the way back to the car...

we spotted this big dinosaur...

picture opportunity...

oh, and adventure fun too.. :)

and after that..

lin asked...

with a smile on his face...

(i'm sure it was completely genuine..)

if we could be on our way home...

and of course i obliged...

it was time for my nap anyway...

...

and that was our adventure...

the first one in awhile...

and since the doc said on Monday that i'm officially NOT on bedrest for at least the next 4 weeks...

i'm busy surfing the web for our next adventure...

i know the fam's ecstatic :)