Tulsa

Ever since the beginning of last school year, when Cameron's teacher told him that the children's museum in Tulsa has a tape slide, the kids have been begging to go. The starts aligned when Dale had an Oklahoma Bar Association conference and we got to join him in Tulsa. While he went to meetings, we got to play and explore!

After Cameron's Stem Camp on Friday morning (June 21), we loaded up and drove up to Tulsa (Dale had gone up the day before). We stopped at the Route 66 Historical Village and Cameron especially loved seeing the oil derrick, and train. Unfortunately, that's all they had...with many plans to make it cooler in the coming years.

Then it was time to meet up with Dale at the casino (gasp!) hotel for the Bar pool party. Apparently adult pool parties mean sitting in the water drinking alcohol. The kids were oblivious and enjoyed the water...probably making the atmosphere a lot louder than that sort of pool party is supposed to have?

We dried off and took off for Center of the Universe which is a brick circle. When you stand in the middle of it and speak, your voice echoes but no one on the outside of the circle can hear it. None of the kids could hear their own echoes and weren't very impressed but I thought it was cool.

We got some Little Ceasar's pizza and went to The Gathering Place which is a huge public park with tons of play grounds. I lost Lily within 20 minutes of being there and had a minor heart attack. A kind Asian man kept telling me she had wandered a certain way but I was terrified to leave the boys who were at a different play area. I finally found her with one of the security personnel. After that, Cameron was designated her buddy on all play structures and did a fantastic job.

This was easily the most stressful place I've ever taken all 4 kids by myself because there were people everywhere, it was huge, I had no idea how many exits each play area had, and it was too easy to lose a kid! But, the kids all enjoyed it...except for Becca who was stuck in the stroller most of the time because it was NOT toddler friendly and I couldn't handle chasing her and the other 3 kids.

 Once the park closed, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed. There was only a king bed, so Kimball was on the floor...

Cameron was on the little bench...

and the girls were in bed with us.

The next morning Dale and I got to eat the buffet breakfast while the kids watched TV, then we headed back to The Gathering Place because we hadn't seen it all and I'm a glutton for punishment.

Once we finally saw all the play areas, we headed off to the Tulsa Children's Museum. When we got there I wasn't sure it was the right place because it's such a small building. There were only 2 rooms, but it was air conditioned, Becca got to nap in the stroller, and the other kids had fun running around in an area where I could sit and watch them. We all tried out the tape slide which was pretty fun.

By the end, I was wiped out and my back was super sore. Dale met us once he was done and drove the van home so I could drive the car in relative quiet. It was good to be home!