June Activities

It was so busy, but with bigger things, not as many small ones, but here are the fillers:

-Swim Lessons are going really well. Girls all leveled up while I was in DC, but they don't have openings right now so we have to keep them in their current until it's open. But I'm okay with that because I feel Gwen and Cara could get more practice before going onto the fancy learning stuff. Lucy is still too nervous about putting her face into the water, so hopefully she'll get comfortable with that soon. Love having them on Sundays!

-The girls ALL have a missing front tooth all together and I just HAD to get a picture to commemorate it.

-Kids got to do a campout with Dad in the backyard on the 6th since it's finally getting warm enough at night to test out how they'd do. He made it even more fun by letting the kids stay up to play Minecraft for a while (he let me just go to bed) and then, after putting Pierce to bed inside, he took them out to the tent when it started to get dark. They ended up staying up really late (he said they went out when it got dark, but stayed up looking at stars and didn't fall asleep till 11), then woke up around 2-3 with Cara's snorting, and then up for good at 5 AM. I was surprised they didn't wake me up since I like to keep our window open. But overall, I was glad I got some good sleep, Larry was DRAGGING! (don't blame him though)

-We definitely made sure to hit up Chevron for Free Frazil Fridays, of course! It's funny to think last Summer Larry was taking them to get them since he didn't work last Summer.

-Lucy's 1:1s, She went with Dad on the 11th to get some Froyo (of course. Then on the 16th with me, I took her to Wal Mart to get her a new outfit (she kind of needed one so I thought that would be good for her need gift) and then I let her pick out a watch, instead of getting a treat (since she just went with Larry and we knew we had a ton of candy leftover from her birthday and party). She almost picked swim suit instead of watch, but once she saw the watches, she really liked those. Now the other girls want one just like it, of course!

-Summer means lots of activities for kids (so they don't get sick of being at home...plus I need to do SOMETHING on my breaks, might as well make them fun) - 6/6 splash pad; 6/23 painting

Splash pad adventures!

Letting the kids have fun with painting

-My favorite pics of the kids this month:

Ultimate Memory Maker: Lagoon!

Lagoon is one of those places I remember going every Summer when I was growing up. It's a place I looked forward to taking my family to when they were big enough to ride the rides. Then I saw how expensive it had become and I no longer had that dream, haha. I also am one of those that doesn't love that they have the animals in cement cages and didn't want to give them my money if it wouldn't help that.

Well, I had been thinking about taking them this year as a one time thing. I was hoping to get a Get Out Pass that would've been a decent discount and I could convince myself that the money just went to the other venues, and not Lagoon. THEN a story came out saying they were going to re-home the animals elsewhere and I felt MUCH better about getting the tickets. I still don't love how much they cost, but figured we'd be using our usual vacation funds towards it so it didn't feel like we were spending anything extra on it. I even decided we'd do it on a Wednesday so that the crowds were light and we'd get more bang for our buck. I talked Larry into taking the day off with us so I can ride some big rides as well, he was hesitant at first, but we made it work.

It ended up being such a fun day! We got there bright and early and stayed until we couldn't do anymore. the lines were really short (I think our longest wait was Primordial, but I think that one just kept breaking down while we waited, which made it take longer). We even packed a bunch of snacks so we didn't need to spend money on the food (although looking at the food prices, they really aren't as bad as they used to be).

I was really happy I could do the spinning rides, the last time we went I tried to do them and got so sick and hated that I couldn't do too many rides if we did go. This time, though, I found that if I didn't look outside the ride too much I could handle it just fine. Cara and Gwen were so brave and did some of the bigger rides and seemed to like them. Cara said Wicked was scary, but that she wanted to do it again, haha. Pierce became obsessed with the haunted house rides, he just wanted to do those over and over and would have a melt down if we told him to wait (even though he did like the other ones we had him try). Poor Lucy was asking all day long to ride the Ferris Wheel, and I told her (over and over) that we would when we were in that area. Then when we got there, we saw it was shut down because they were waiting on some parts. So that was a bit of a bummer. She did let me rock her on the Roll-O-Planes ride though, so I'm glad she was brave there. Gwen always wanted to ride with me so on the bigger rides Cara had to ride solo (since Larry was with the smaller two). However, on the rides we could do as a family (which were actually quite a bit), Cara and Gwen would ride together while Larry and I took Lucy or Pierce. 

One of my favorite pictures!

One thing I was excited to take them on was Rattlesnake Rapids, they all loved getting wet (although I did have to protect Lucy since she's our little sensitive one). When we got off the ride, we sat out in the sun to dry off (and re-apply sunscreen) and the kids loved being at the fence/gate area watching the people on the ride about to go under the waterfall and warning them by yelling out "be prepared to get wet!" haha.

They really wanted to do the waterpark, but, unfortunately, we didn't end up having a lot of extra time for that. That was a bit of a bummer, but it's okay, we can go to other waterparks/pools through the rest of the summer.

I also loved that we got a chance to try the new rides (two in Pioneer Village that were really fun and Primordial). Primordial probably would've been more fun for me, but I lost my hat right at the beginning (right as the actual coaster part starts). I was so bummed because even though it was just a random hat, and I have a million others that work just as well, that one is my absolute favorite and is my go-to hat anytime we leave and I need one. BUT I got really lucky and as we were leaving the ride area and going through the gift shop (I was going to head over to the lost and found to see if they could call me if it's found and I'd come back to grab it) when I heard Cara say "look! It's Mom's hat!" I thought she meant she found one that looked like it in the gift shop, but then I saw her holding my actual hat (it's from Universal Studios so it's not one you'd find in a gift shop at Lagoon). Apparently, it was on the ground right outside it! What are the odds? I felt VERY lucky haha (and happy that it was found and I could take it home).

The day was going SO well I even was talking to Larry about maybe getting a season pass for next year (I've heard Black Friday has great deals on them and if we go one Sunday a month it would be MORE than worth it and I wouldn't stress about lines or wait times). I'm not sure if that'll happen, but we'll check it out. Of course, Larry was only like "eh" about that because he was DONE by the 2nd half of the day. He was over the heat and lines and everything, poor guy. 

The only bummer part for me was I started getting a headache. I noticed it was REALLY bad when I took the girls on bigger rides. I had noticed that Samurai had a very short line and that's my favorite ride, so after planning to take Cara on some bigger rides (that Gwen wasn't big enough for) I told Larry I was going to do that one last and then we could leave. Well then I took Cara on Cannibal and I got pretty anxious about her falling out and my head was feeling like it was about to explode. So when we got back to Larry, I told him let's call it and I was ready to go get ice cream and head home.

When we got to Pioneer Village, we noticed some friendly Peacocks that were hanging around. They weren't even remotely scared of the people walking around, so we got to get pretty close to them. And by the time we got our ice cream and sat down to watch them more, I noticed my headache was completely gone. So I assume it was more a stress headache with the kids on the big rides than anything. 

Overall, a great day as a family and it made me realize, you don't need to do big vacations, just going somewhere new and/or fun should be enough. We're not sure if we'll be able to do vacations next year (something big is in the works so we'll see), but if we can't, at least we know we can have a lot of fun staying close to home! AND I'll plan to make up for missed vacations in the years after that haha.

Memory Maker: Bees Baseball Game

Well...our first Family baseball game didn't exactly go as planned. I had been so excited to take the family to this for a long time. I had planned to do more sporting events this year and this was our first one. As a bonus, the team was playing at their new, fancy stadium in the Daybreak area (a very nice area) AND it was a drone night, so they were going to be doing a drone show after the game that I thought the kids would really love seeing.

You can see Lucy's excitement haha

Because it was a late night game and our seats were in the shade, I made sure the kids brought jackets (but that's all I told them to bring). When we got there we felt a little bit of a breeze, so I thought that'll be nice in this heat. Unfortunately, the breeze never stopped the whole time. At first it was a little wind, but then it hit, and it hit HARD! 

We got to feeling cold very quickly. Even though we were cold, I was determined to stay and watch the drones. The team wasn't playing the greatest so the kids weren't too excited to watch it, but I told them it'll be worth it in the end. We were pretty miserable. I didn't plan on getting snacks since we ate before we left, but the kids kept asking and I wanted them to enjoy this so I ended up getting some small snacks, but it didn't fully help with the cold. Pierce refused to wear his jacket, I took Larry's and gave mine to the girls to use as a blanket (because they were in short or dresses), so poor Larry was extra freezing. 

We had made it to the 9th inning, which turned out to be the longest inning EVER, the score was SO off and we just wanted them to call it so we could get to the drone show. Then, just as the visiting team finished their turn, they made an announcement that the drones were cancelled because of the wind and we were so upset. We left immediately because we were not staying to see them lose and keep freezing. It was such a bummer, we couldn't feel our toes, we lost the game, and we had to walk forever to get back to our car (or so it felt like).

The good part is, they did announce that they'd offer 50% off new tickets to make up for this, so once I get that email I'll plan to order ones for the next Drone night. Mom said her and Will would like to come with, so that'll be nice. I hope the kids like that one, I'd hate to have them not have fun and not want to go to another game. Maybe next time we'll plan to eat dinner there to make it more exciting for them. Fingers crossed it works out!

Home Summer Beach Party

One thing I love to do is check out event calendars for places around us or places we go to often, just to see if there's something fun we could do that we didn't know about. I aim to look more down South since I'd love to explore more South than we usually do. I was looking at the Shops at Riverwood and saw they were doing a Beach Party this week. Even though it would be on our usual Family Movie Night, I thought it sounded fun (plus we just saw a movie yesterday). I asked the kids if they'd be interested in going over a movie and they said sure, it sounded fun. 

Unfortunately, this week our neighbor reached out to Larry to say he had something come up and the mom was out of town so he wondered if we'd be around in case their boys needed anything. He didn't say they needed to be at our house, but he just wanted to know someone was nearby just in case. Larry told him we'd be here and then I reminded him we had the Beach Party plans. We were going to go back to our movie night plans, but the kids were just so excited about this party, that I thought "what if we just bring the Beach Party to our home?"

After doing our Free Frazil Friday run, we came home and inflated our pool and filled it up so that the water could heat up a little in the afternoon sun. I also remembered we got a shaved ice maker for Christmas so why not also make those? 

After dinner we got everything set up. We plugged in our splash pad things, had our leftover popcorn from the movie we went to yesterday, and even made some s'mores. One neighbor boy came over to play, the other one only came over for dinner and then decided to go back home. We played some music and just had a lot of fun outside. 

The kids had an absolute blast! In fact, they said they'd be okay if we gave up more movie nights for something like that, haha. I'm just glad it was such a hit (the neighbor boy didn't want to leave). I love our movie nights, but I think it's fun to do something different every once in a while.

An Unexpected Family Fun Day

Oh man did we have the most fun day off today! I knew I had the day off so I had plans to take the kids out, but then Larry mentioned he also had the day off and I knew I had to rearrange things so we could make it a fun family day.

We started our day off at the zoo. Since it's getting warmer, I figured a morning trip to the zoo would be the best. I had the Connect Pass to use for me and the girls so we just had to pay for Larry and Pierce. The girls were obsessed with getting as many pictures of things throughout and posing with the statues haha. We also let the kids play in the splash pad for a while. We also liked that they let you bring your own food so we could bring our own snacks and eat that all day to keep the kids happy.

After we were done there, we went to Fat Cats to see How to Train Your Dragons (the live action one) in theaters. This was our first movie as a whole family (and Pierce's first movie in theaters), we made sure to have snacks and bring blankets to make it cozy. The movie was SO cute, I highly recommend it. It's almost a shot for shot remake of the animated version, which I love. Pierce did get a little bored and wiggly, but if dragons were on the screen, he was all about it. Luckily, they had a lot of dragons on the screen to keep him entertained.

It may not sound like much, but I just love when we get to do things as a family. And first movies as a family was a huge moment I looked forward to for so long. I'm just glad it was a good movie, it made it that much better!