Water park!

Last night I got a call from my friend Kristen at about 9pm. She explained to me that her family had season passes to a local water park, and with those passes they had purchased back in the spring, they had received three free guest passes. This is the last weekend the park will be open this season and we were so blessed today to join them for free! -yes, absolutely free for our entire family! - at this awesome water park. Tonight I'm long on pictures, so I'll try to be a bit shorter on words than is typical for me...

Here are my men, enjoying one of the two lazy rivers that wound its way through the park.

...and here is my little man, telling us his true feelings about water parks, or perhaps life in general.

Kristen and youngest daughter Clara - a sweet mama and a sweet child.

Toward the very beginning of our day at the water park, the dads and bigger kiddos went down a pretty fun tube ride that emptied into the before-mentioned lazy river. Here comes Adam!

And Drake! He thought this slide was totally awesome!

And this is Libby coming down the same slide. Libby is a precious little girl, and I wish you all could meet her. She just cracks me up. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of her from today, delinquent camerawoman that I am. (And I have none of her father, Brandon, but I'm sure he doesn't mind too much!) Libby and Drake had such a blast together today, and I intended to snap a few pictures of the two of them playing together. But you know how it goes with cameras and water - I spent most of the day dripping wet and safely away from the camera!

My handsome little guy...

...and my handsome big guy!

Levi taking it all in - as you may have gathered from the previous photo of him, he was less than impressed!

This is where he wanted to be the entire time. And he got his way for most of it.

Except for when this happened.

And I definitely took advantage of that time, too, let me assure you! Kristen and I did a couple of things solo, without the kids, and then Kristen held my glasses while Brandon and I went down the, I believe, second-scariest slides in the park. (Brandon and Adam had gone down the scariest ones earlier, but I wasn't quite up for that.) But let me tell you, my tailbone is making me pay for that one!!

Ah yes, and speaking of glasses, at one point earlier in the day, I went down a smaller water slide, flat on my back, and lost my glasses when I hit the water at the bottom. Panic ensued for all, but only for a moment, because Adam put on Drake's goggles and managed to find the glasses before they were trampled or washed down the lazy river. I have never been more thankful to be in possession of my glasses! (Now I know why people wear those slightly dorky straps on their glasses while swimming...perhaps I'll be finding one of those.)

We just had such an absolutely amazing time today, and Drake is totally bummed that the park will not be open until next May. He told Kristen and Libby, "We should do this more often!" After the great time we had today, we may consider coming back at some point, when we actually have to pay for it. Yeah, it was that good!

So thank you K, B, L, & C for such a special treat!

P.S. - Thanks to my friend Dorla, I have finally learned how to make my blog pictures "clickable"! Yeah, go ahead and click on one (this post only). It opens up the picture to full size, where it can be viewed up close, or even saved in full size to make prints or whatever. (I'm thinking this second option may only be of interest to grandparents, however!)

Birthday party, and a busy Sunday

My dear blog has been a bit neglected lately, with all the excitement happening around here. But having a lot going on is all the more reason to post, of course! So I decided to carve out a bit of time tonight to check in and bring you all up to date.

The main event for us this weekend was Drake's 6th birthday party! His actual birthday is the 17th - next Sunday - but we wanted to have his party while Aunt Crystal and Uncle Jeff were here! (Also next Sunday happens to be the day before school starts. I'm sure that weekend will come with its own busyness and apprehensions, so why have a birthday party overshadowed by the end-of-summer blues?) So anyway, the party went very well! Here's a glimpse...

The birthday boy!

No elaborate cake this year! Four big plastic bugs on a green-frosted two-layer lemon cake. But it gets the Drake Seal of Approval!

Aunt Crystal and her assistant, Drake, did a great job decorating the living room and dining room! Here they're trying to pass that looooong last half-hour before the party by reading some books!

The guests have finally arrived! After playing in the playroom and the backyard for a little while, we got them going on a game of Duck, Duck, Goose!

The "Pin the Legs on the Bug" game seemed to be a hit. As you can see, Drake's bug leg was just a little off the mark, but he handled it well...in his own hyper/silly way, that is!

The partygoers ready for cake! (Sorry about the little boy with the blurry face. I wasn't able to contact his mom for permission to post his picture in time for this post. Believe me, it's a cute face, though!)

After the pinata! This was Drake's first party with a pinata. I didn't get a picture of the pinata itself (Optimus Prime - way cool!), but it was one of those new ones with the strings on the bottom that you pull, instead of smashing it to smithereens. We were happy that all the kids got to pull a string at least once before Drake's friend Kiley pulled the "lucky" string, and the bottom opened up! Candy, candy, everywhere!

What a great party it was. At least, we had a good time! (A big sigh of relief!)

And today was a really full day as well! The problem is, we left our camera at home. Crystal and Jeff had their camera, though, and we were really hoping we could transfer some of the pictures and videos they took and put them on our computer to share with you via the blog. But alas, none of the three cords we had available to transfer pictures would fit in the darn little hole, so we were not able to. We did, however, have a nice conspiracy theory discussion about electronics companies and the lack of an industry standard-shaped hole on digital cameras for the little plug thingies to fit into. All three cords had different shaped plugs! (You can tell I am truly a tech-savvy individual, now can't you??)

So today we went to the early service at church, and then out to Bass Pro Shop, which is only a half-hour or so from here. The boys always get stoked about the big (like taller than I am) aquarium in the back of the store, and the glass elevator! Then we went out to lunch at a fun and rather "irreverent" and unorthodox restaurant native to our area which sports a little playground, a little "gator museum" and even live gators in a big pond outside! We tend to take all our out-of-state guests to this restaurant, because it's so unusual and totally "local." (Those of you who either live here or have visited us down here know what I'm talkin' about!)

After that, we hit the beach! It was an absolutely perfect day for that. The water was its typically beautiful green and blue, the air temperature was actually down a bit today, the water was warm, and the waves were almost nonexistent when we arrived around 1pm. The waves picked up a bit throughout the afternoon, but never got very rough. It was perfect for actually swimming in, not just wading, like the last time we were at the beach in May. It was really a great beach day!

Drake is like a different kid at the beach than he was before swimming lessons!! Before, he rarely went into the water past his knees or so, didn't want his head to get wet, and most of the time, just wouldn't go in the water at all. He was especially nervous about the waves. But you should have seen that boy today! I was the one who was nervous! I had to keep calling him back near us as he swam and "bodysurfed" his way around.

Levi started out the afternoon afraid of the waves, and spent most of his time sitting on a beach towel playing in the sand, or else taking walks up and down the beach with me. By the end, though, he was tolerating the water up to about thigh-level. Yay, Levi! He really loved the seagulls and spent a lot of time signing "bird, bird, bird!" We have an absolutely adorable 4-second or so video clip of that, but it's trapped inside my sister's camera. Oh well. Maybe I'll post it later, once they get home and can e-mail it to us!

This great day was topped off tonight by a phone call from Dave and Cherie, our favorite Alaskans. We miss them so much, but it was nice to get to talk today! After travelling and living in an RV for almost two months, they will finally get the keys to their base house tomorrow, and their household goods shipment should arrive the next day. Baby is due in 2-1/2 weeks! They are holding together nicely, and I stand in awe of their ability to handle crises and chaos, and to work together. (I shudder to think what state I would be in if it were our family in their situation!) God is good!

Well, we aren't sure what tomorrow will hold. It's the last full day we get to spend with Jeff and Crystal. Maybe we'll go to the park for awhile.

(I'll try to remember my camera!)