Remembering Carlton this week.  My post from June 10, 2013 entitled “He Had Fun Despite the Snack Deficit” .  

We all have routines.  Some more than others. This weekend was further evidence to me of how much patience my sister in law has and how blessed we are to have the family that we have.  Let me explain.

Chris and I had planned to take Carlton to Minneapolis for an overnight trip .  On the agenda:  the Mall of America, the Minnesota Zoo and a stay in a hotel with a pool.  Well, we can check all those things off now and I “think” it was successful.  Sometimes it is hard to tell but no blood was shed and we all came home in one piece so I consider that was a success.  (Never mind the dish that fell out of the cupboard before we left home and cut my toe..,)

The weather forecast was iffy so we decided to switch up our schedule and do the zoo trip on Saturday when it was not as strong of a chance of rain.  Good move on our part as it poured on Sunday.  The zoo was fun but quite honestly Carlton acted bored about 95% of the time.  I suspect it is because he really does not see very well despite attempts to get him to wear glasses.  He told me once he was not allowed to wear glasses at work.  Where he comes up with some of the ideas he has I have no clue and he is stubborn with a capital S.  If he gets it in his head good luck trying to change his way of thinking.

Highlights of the zoo were probably the snow monkeys:

The bears:

And the cats:

The hotel was perfect!  Our suite had 2 separate bedrooms and a living space with a kitchen in between so Carlton was beyond happy with that. We settled in and walked to a Mexican restaurant for a quick and yummy dinner.  When our food had settled we took Carlton to the pool so he could do one of his favorite things.  Unfortunately there were some rowdy teenagers there the entire time and he was a little scared by their loudness and didn’t want to swim too much but we tried!

The night went a bit downhill from there when Carlton realized that there were no snacks in the room other than the leftover carmel popcorn we had gotten at the zoo and a muffin leftover from my breakfast.  As I said—routine is his life and tonight there would be no 10 pm snack of a hotdog, a cookie and a can of pop.  Add to that the trauma of no Hallmark Channel on the hotel television selections and we were bordering on being negligent!   Chris was firm in his decision that Carl would survive without those and the end result was that Carl went to bed super early (compared to normal) and actually got a good nights sleep.  And he survived although he was counting down the hours until he could have that precious snack back in Iowa.  No  joke.

We got up Sunday morning and headed to the mall after the “normal” breakfast. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to get him a yogurt and orange juice from the breakfast bar when Chris and I ate!   The mall was not too crowded when we got there and we took him to the middle section which hosts all of the roller coasters and rides.  He was content to just look at them as he told me he got sick on a roller coaster the one time he rode one.  I was NOT going to force anything at this point!

Carl’s new Bite Me undies!

Successful at finding a new pair of OSU slippers !!!

This was HUGE!!! Logan looked through an entire bin of slippers to find the one pair of OSU slippers that they had in inventory!!!  He was thrilled!

Lunch at Bubba Gump’s

Rainforest Cafe Frog

“Vanna” showing the map of the mall!

Carlton loves the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and thought this part was pretty cool!

One more picture at Mall of America!!!!

Soon after he found the slippers he decided he had had enough and I guess 3 1/2 hours was pretty good for a couple of guys!  I am definitely taking girls next trip!!!  I had barely gotten started!   All the way home (when he wasn’t sleeping) he was talking about getting back into his regular schedule aka having a hotdog, cookie and soda at 10 pm.  

We have Carlton 2 weeks out of the year if we are lucky.  His sister and family have him 50.  She has so much more patience and understanding than I have and I am so grateful that she and Carlton have the bond that they have.  He is blessed and does not even realize just how blessed he is.  I am blessed by her and DO know it.  When I see her on Friday I am going to tell her again how grateful I am .  Is there someone in your life you need to tell how much they have blessed your life? Don’t put it off……do it today.