Rock River Rapids

We haven't ever been to the water park that is just south of Wichita in Derby.  It is actually the location of my triathlon next Sunday, and when I met up with my tri-buddies last Wednesday to do a trial run of all the routes, I saw the water park and had a feeling my kids would probably love it.  On Saturday mornings, they have a tot-time from 11-12:30, so you can get into the shallow pool if you are 5 and under without all the bigger kids and crowds around, so that's what we did. 

Jayden really wanted to wait around until 12:30, because that's when the rest of the park opened and you could go down the lazy river and the much bigger slides.  So, we waited around!

Sadly, Jayden missed the height requirement by 1 inch!  1 measly inch!  So the only thing he could do was float down the lazy river, but he had to wear a life jacket and he had to sit on an adults lap.  He was pretty bummed about not getting to go down the slides, but I think we had fun on the river!

Oklahoma Aquarium

I thought it would be fun to do something different this weekend.  Go someplace we haven't gone (air conditioned of course) and see something we haven't seen.  You never know, you might find something great!  Plus, I thought it would be fun to spend some time away from the chores and work and life that is our usual weekend and just do something with the kids, especially since Royal leaves in about 9 days to spend a week fishing up in Alaska. (Yea for fish!!!)

So, I surfed around the web and Royal and I decided on the Oklahoma Aquarium down in Tulsa.  It's about a 3 hour drive and the website looked like it would be pretty good.  Sadly, it was pretty lame.  Maybe I just had high expectations growing up going to the Seattle Aquarium.  Where were the sea lions? and the sea otters?  and the seals?  penguins anyone???
The only aligators were these statues out front (that exhibit wasn't finished I guess)

The windows to the fish displays were so small that it was hard to fight through the crowd to get a peek at what was inside.

They had obviously renovated parts of the aquarium and had put in some bigger tanks with bigger windows, so not all of it was these tiny peep holes to look in.  The reef exhibits with all the warm tropical fish was pretty great to look at, and the shark exhibit was pretty awesome.  The best part of that, of course, was the megalodon section - a shark found back in the dinosaur times - Jayden knew what it was before anybody even told him.  He went running down the hall, "MEGALODON!!!!"

We ended up spending only a couple hours at the aquarium before we had seen everything (a couple times), so we decided to leave.  I was a bit bummed because we had spent more time in the car then we did at the aquarium, so thanks to our GPS and my sister on her computer in Phoenix (we don't have internet on our phones), we found a children's museum to play at, and we spent a few hours there letting the kids play and run around.
Willow did some shopping

and made me a cake with cabbage on it and sung me happy birthday.

Jayden happened to make a new best friend while we were there and I couldn't hardly find him to get any pictures until they got to the stage and dress up area.

Onto a silly sidenote...we are still working on potty-training Willow.  She does really well at home and has no accidents there (other than she refuses to go #2 in the toilet and waits until bedtime and poops in a diaper....I seem to remember her brother doing the same thing), but she does NOT like using any toilet other than the one at our house.  Well, I didn't get her diapers washed the night before our trip to Tulsa and I didn't want to buy any disposables and I didn't really want to have her spend a day in diapers, but I didn't want to have a pee'd in carseat, or a puddle of pee at the aquarium to clean up, or wet clothes to change and bring home.  So, I came up with a genius idea!  I put her little potty chair in the back of the car, which I wasn't sure if it would work because she has only used it a few times, but when I showed it to her before we left, she promptly jumped up in the back of the car and pee'd in it.  YES!  And 2 hours into the drive down to Tulsa, she asked if she had a diaper on, I told her no, we pulled the car over and victory!

Envy

I opened my freezer and found this.

Strangely, I kinda wished I was that snake.......will the heat ever end????
(and I know if I was in back in the good ole northwest and was experiencing their 78 minutes above 80 degrees the entire summer, I'd be complaining about it.  but i'm not there, i'm here and if i could get a 65 degree rainy day, i'd put my lawn chair out in the middle of the road and sit there.  all. day.)

Big Fishin'

I'm pretty sure Royal's dreams came true last night when Jayden finally popped the question, "Dad, can we go fishing?"  Queue a slack-jawed Royal and angels singing in the background.  Don't worry, Royal quickly recovered and made promises that the next night, as soon as it cooled off a little, they would head down to the pond to try and catch a fish....and there was no way Willow was getting left behind!

 At first, there were a lot of wild casts (Willow didn't get to cast, she just reeled in) and a frustrated boy, that he couldn't cast as far as Royal, or even hit the water half the time.  And there was a lot of catching this:

And Jayden about gave up and said he was no good at fishing and that he wasn't going to do it.  But Royal kept telling him that he used to be just like him, and that it takes a lot of practice, and soon enough Jayden would be outcasting him.  Then Jayden said, "Dad, you have to reel it now.  My pole keeps getting really heavy"  To which, Royal and I both yelled, "That means you have a fish!!!"  And then Jayden reeled in this sucker.

There was a lot of concern on the kid's part about the amount of bleeding the fish was doing after Royal finally got the hooks out (they have been recently freaking out about Royal killing flies and how he's killing a family), but don't worry Royal put him back in the pond and he swam off and never came floating back to the surface, so we think he's ok.

Then, about a minute later, Willow reeled in this one!  And she was very enthused that her fish didn't have any blood on it.

And we now have plans to go fishing again before this week is out.  We're pretty sure the kids are hooked.  :)

Wet 'n' Wild

I am so sick of our weather!! It's too hot and too humid for too many days now.  I mean when I get up to go workout at 5am, it should not be 85 degrees outside, I'm getting up early to beat the heat for goodness sakes!  Pretty much every time me and the kids get in the car, I'm tempted to just turn us west and keep driving until it drops a good 20-30 degrees.  :)

Our neighborhood pool has been getting some repairs done this past week, so it has been out of commission.  That means we've been doing a lot of chilling (literally trying to chill) in our basement and I'm getting a little bored down there.  So, I slathered the kids in sunscreen, put on swim suits, put ice water in our misting fans, filled up 2 big water bottles, grabbed some snacks, some towels, and goggles and went to the zoo.  Today is a Wet 'n' Wild day, which means a fire truck shows up and sprays down the kids and/or adults - it has been proven time and time again that the firemen are actually looking for fully clothed adults and if those adults come into the line of fire, they will get the hosed turned on them, and then when the somewhat surprised clothed person tries to step out of the spray, the firemen tend to follow them with the water.  There are always a few angry "rookies" that stomp off to the sidelines grumbling about the stupid firemen.  It provides for some great people watching.

Both of the kids were a little apprehensive at first, and didn't want to go out there and I didn't wear proper attire, so I knew I'd be a fireman's target.  But I knew if I could get them into the water, they'd feel some relief from the 105 (feels like 115) weather and they wouldn't want to leave.  So, knowing that the firemen never seem too keen on soaking kids who are a little scared, I carried Willow with Jayden holding my hand out into the back part of the field and as I suspected the firemen sprayed us, but didn't soak us.  And it worked....off the kids went.

I'm so glad that Jayden is so tall, he was really easy for me to spot amongst all the kids running around in the puddle. I could hardly ever find Willow first, but I knew if I could spot Jayden, Willow would be right around him.

Every once in awhile, Jayden would take off to the other side of the puddle, and Willow would lose him because she's much smaller and would have to maneuver herself around all these other big people.  Jayden would get to the other side and turn around and call for her.  She'd look and look, and then when she spotted him, she's start running as fast as she could...

...until she got to him...

...and he'd give her the biggest hug!  Isn't this just the sweetest thing ever????

After more than an hour playing in water, the kids had finally had enough.  We got sno-cones and I thought we were headed home, but they wanted to see more animals.  So, we walked around the zoo and I went through every misting sprayer I could find and went into every air conditioned exhibit I could think off.  It was so hot out, we watched the tiger come out from a shady spot and walk right into his pool and lay down.  It must be hot if a cat is willing to go lay down in water!

Then on our way back from the tiger's exhibit, we happened to circle by the fire trucks again, and Willow decided she needed to get a little more wet and got back in the puddle.

Finally, after more than 3 hours at the zoo the kids relented and let me take them home, and they both fell asleep in the car.  Nice.

Run Jayden Run

During Willow's swimming lessons this summer, Jayden and I have taken to running around the track.  Jayden does a pretty good job of entertaining himself while Willow is swimming, but it is hard in the summer because instead of twice a week lessons for 4 weeks, they are 4 times a week for 2 weeks, a bit intense, but great for working around vacations - not that we're going anywhere, but still, if we were... :)

The first time Jayden started running, he ended up running almost a mile while he followed me around the track as I did some sprint work I was suppose to get in.  Then the next day, I told him I'd run with him the whole time and he ran 4 laps around the track without stopping.  A whole mile with no breaks, I could hardly believe it!  He slept great that week!  Then we took a couple week break from swimming lessons, but we are back at it this week, and Jayden's been begging to go running again.  Lucky for me he's forgotten to wear shoes that tie for the past couple days and it's just not fun to run in crocs, so I've gotten out of it.  Plus it's just so hot out that I haven't really been reminding him, because I don't really want to be running around a hot track when it's 100 degrees outside. Today he remembered himself, but he let me get out of it since I promised I'd take some pictures.  :)

He only made it 2 laps today before he called it quits.  It was just too hot.  And I'm kinda glad because his little face was turning so red!

Fruit Party

A few days ago Jayden started talking about a party.

J :  Hey Mom, I need to have a party.
Me: Oh yeah?  What kind of party?
J: A fruit party.
Me: What's a fruit party?
J: You know, a party where people come and eat fruit.

Then I really didn't think much of it, except when Jayden said something about needing decorations and that the party was going to be on Wednesday, after lunch.  I still really didn't think anything of it, because I figured he'd forget about it.  Nope.  Today after we got home from working out, and Willow's swim lesson, and had lunch, he said, 'Ok Mom.  Where are the decorations?'  Then I looked at him and heard crickets chirping in the background as he stared at me expecting me to produce something.  I guess I should of taken him more seriously.... I really didn't want to put together a "party" for Jayden, when I really had no idea what he wanted or expected.  All I wanted to do at that moment was take a shower.  I had worked out in almost 90 degree weather with 87% humidity, and then stood in a super hot and humid pool building for swimming lessons, I was sticky and just wanted to put on some clean clothes.  I did not want to start decorating the house.  But, I did it anyway.  I know, I should get mother of the year.  :)

So, I managed to scrape a few things together.  I found some streamers on top of the fridge, a half full package of black balloons (must of been left over from making spiders around halloween), some foam sticky hearts (left over from valentines crafts), and then Jayden found a Cars Happy Birthday banner.

I blew up the balloons and Willow and I put foam hearts all over them, and Jayden hung up streamers and the banner.

Then we put a blanket in the middle of the floor to have our party in, because it's too miserable to go outside.  I put some grapes on toothpicks, and cut out some animal shaped watermelon, to make them special, and made some lemonade.  Let's have our party!  To which Jayden said, "Um, we need to invite some people"  You mean this party isn't just for us????  Oi....  Now, I see what the party was for, poor Jaydo is lonely and just wanted to play with some friends.  The last couple of times he's invited some neighbor kids over, it just hasn't worked out, so I guess he thought if there was a party, there was no way they could say no.  So, we went across the street to Goldie's house and asked if she could come over for a fruit party.  Her dad looked at me a little funny, but said ok.

The kids sat on their blanket and ate fruit and drank lemonade.

and then played with balloons

and other toys around the house for awhile.  When the party was over, Jayden sent Goldie home with a ballon and a Thomas the Train bouncy ball we found in the same place that had the balloons and foam hearts in it.  You just can't send your guests home without a goodie bag!  What a good host!