Flesworthy Family Furlough Fun: Surprise, Surprise, We Went to the Zoo and the Children’s Museum

No, our house has not foreclosed, forcing us to seek shelter at the Children’s Museum. I can understand if you assume that, though, considering we seem to be at the Children’s Museum like every other day lately.

But first, let’s back up to earlier in the week, to what the babies and I did while Andy was away in Champaign. (His mom is doing great, by the way, home from the hospital now and recovering even faster than her doctors predicted. Woo hoo!) Henry and Eleanor and I kept busy by going to story time at the library; we bought cat litter at Sam’s Club; we took Julie out for supper. Andy came home late Thursday afternoon, and we planned some fun for his remaining furlough days.

On Friday morning we headed downtown to the zoo. We’re fans of wintertime zoo visits—this time we hit the desert exhibit first, and had the whole place to ourselves. That meant we got to monopolize the time of the kind volunteer, who gave us the lowdown on the animals around us—the meerkats, various turtles and birds, and the rarest lizard in the world, with only about twenty left in the wild. Henry and Eleanor were entranced by the turtles and shrieked with joy at the meerkats. They thought Andy and I were saying “more cats” so they would sign “more cats” as they laughed at the not-really-a-cat furry creatures. We peeked at some frolicking baby bears and saluted an eagle, then headed in out of the cold to the aquarium. Eleanor once again made a beeline for the fish, and they both seemed to enjoy the sharks this time. I think they would have petted them if they weren’t too short/had parents that would let an almost-two year old grab a shark.

Bentley and Simon had a vet appointment on Friday afternoon, so while Andy was on pet duty, the babies and I headed to Play-a-lot for some fun. This was the first time we’ve been back since we contracted the virus that led to PukeFest ’08; my stomach was churning a little at the memory of the stomach flu. Thankfully, we seem to have emerged unscathed from our latest visit.

On Saturday afternoon we went to the Children’s Museum, where we met Julie and family friend Nick, in town visiting from Chicago. Nick is in Julie’s class and is pretty much the third child in our family; he even lived with my folks for a while during college. We mixed things up a bit and started our visit in the Dinosphere, a part of the museum I hadn’t seen yet. Henry in particular seemed to enjoy the dinosaur skeletons, I enjoyed dressing up in the dinosaur costumes, and Eleanor enjoyed plopping down in the middle of the exhibit, yelling “more butt!” and scooting across the floor on her rear end. We worked our way up the various floors, viewing the Chihuly glass exhibit, sneaking a quick peek at the Batmobile, playing with Legos, deciding not to ride the carousel after seeing the line, and finally ending at the toddler play area. Eleanor entertained herself at the sand table for a good twenty minutes or so while Henry “drove” the tractor and played at the water table with Andy.

For Andy’s final furlough day, I pretty much left him to tend to the babies while I slept in and then ran errands for three or so hours this afternoon. Tonight we dined on nachos and watched the Oscars. Have I told you about our dorky thing where we like to pig out on nachos while watching things like the Oscars, Super Bowl, etc., and we always name the nachos? Neither of us can remember how it started, but now it’s part of our nerdy ways that make us think “good thing we found each other because seriously, who else would want to spend their life with someone who names nachos/makes up their own words to showtunes/quotes Battlestar Galactica/insert random nerd fact here.” Tonight we feasted upon “Frost/Nachos.”

And tomorrow we go back to our non-furlough routine, and hopefully I get back to posting more often. Wanna see some photos? Sure you do…




the rarest lizard meets my equally unique little guy


“more cats!”








Henry and Andy contact the mothership


Rawr! It's the mommasaurus rex!






Another dorky rule we have: if you take a photo next to a statue, you must act like that statue.


I had the bright idea to dress the babies in stripes so we could easily spot them in the crowd. See the three other kids at the table in stripes? I AM A GENIUS.