Finally, 9 o'clock arrived. The pool, much to our surprise, was perfect for the kids. These hotels must know families. Parents don't really want to swim, but the kids do. The maximum depth of the pool was 3 1/2 feet. AND, there was no hot tub. No reason for me to put on a swimming suit. I sat and watched them play in the pool for almost an hour when I decided it was time for a little diversion for me.
If you remember, we had purchased a family membership to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in February with the intent of using our membership at the Exploratorium in downtown San Fran. Worked like a charm and we spent the afternoon "exploring". That was, of course, after I navigated through San Francisco traffic. I never would have made it without Chris' GPS. I was giving thanks for it all the way there and all the back to the hotel. Because of the tall buildings, there was a moment when the GPS voice told me the signal had been lost. "NOOOOO!" Just a small moment of relief when "she" started giving directions again.
The girls could have spent even more time at the Exploratorium, but after four hours, we were all a little pooped. Amy loved the pendulum with markers attached, Misha loved the bubbles, and Kristen could have stayed all day long playing with the beach ball being blown in the air.
The measure of a good vacation is how tired our kids are at the end of the day. All three slept on the way back to the hotel from the Exploratorium, and all three were begging to go swimming as soon as we arrived. Chris finished work about 20 minutes after we arrived. The girls checked the menu for the evening "meal" and decided they wanted to stay again. What the heck! I think it was all a part of their plan to go swimming again. If they stayed close to home, they had more time and opportunity. After dinner, Chris and I had to return a Redbox movie from the previous night. On the way home, Amy called and all three were begging to go swimming again. I told her they had to come up with ten good reasons why we should let them. This is what they came up with:
We won't fight
We'll be nice
We'll say nice things
No hitting, etc.
No whining or screaming
We won't drown
We will go to bed without whining
We won't beg
We won't run away
No talking back
We'll listen to our parents (which was crossed out because it was reason number 11. Let's not go overboard here.)
So we let them swim and wear themselves out some more. You can't argue with that reasoning when they fall asleep almost as soon as they hit the pillow. Sadly, some of us woke up to the sound of the fire alarm going off at 12:11 am. What the heck!? Kristen slept right through it. The alarm and flashing lights never stopped, so we figured we needed to exit the hotel. Other guests began to trickle out in to the parking lot. Many parents, like us, put their kids in their cars and started them up to keep warm. Two fire engines arrived, though if the place had been burning down, it would have had a pretty good head start. When we were finally cleared to return to our rooms, they said that someone had burned popcorn in their microwave and the smoke had set off the alarms. It didn't take any of us long to fall back to sleep thankfully.
End of day two and a way too early start to day three.