Trust Your Gut!

I try to live by this motto. I try to teach my children the same thing. I hope that it pays off for them and that I learn to listen to mine a bit more.

This evening after getting the kids to bed, I went out to clean out my van. Mike was out getting videos from the video store.

I came into the house with an armload of things to put away. I headed straight through the house toward my bedroom depositing things in their rightful places as I went. While walking through the kitchen, I thought to myself "now that Kenna can climb out of her bed we've really got to make sure to lock that door every night." As I entered my room, the breeze was blowing in from outside. After putting things away, I decided to sit on the window seat and view the backyard (we've done lots in the last few months to make it a nice view). As I got closer to the window, I thought I heard the sounds of birds...or was that children.

Upon looking down, I saw my two beautiful night-gowned beauties walking in the backyard. As I type this I wish I had waited and watched them to see exactly what they would do. Morgan was headed toward the "beach" and "ocean" we installed today; Kenna was just getting down from the patio steps.

In that moment of course, I admired their beauty, and promptly called them into the house. Morgan told me that they had been looking for me everywhere . "You should have been in bed momma because we wanted to come sleep with you." Sweet, but uh, what the heck are you doing outside in the middle of the night? Really it was only about 9:45, but still - no going into the back yard alone after dark.

So, as soon as my gut reminded me to lock the back door at bedtime, I should have immediately headed toward the backyard to find the gypsies. Or at least realized immediately that it was the sound of my children in the yard, and headed for the camera.

Ironic

If some people eat dandelion leaves, why the heck am I planting lettuce and pulling weeds?

New Richmond Pool,

AKA "the water park" as Morgan says, is a great place to have some fun. I took my kids there on opening day. It seems like an insane idea, but I waited until the price drops after 5 PM (kids 5 and under are always free). Most people were there all day; so, by the time we got there the parking lot was only about half-full, and we didn't feel crowded at all.

Actually, the pictures and images on the website don't do it justice. There are two pools, a lap pool that you have to really search to find, and a much larger play-land. The play pool has zero entry, a very small toddler slide, a wide family slide, a whirl pool, a large platform for climbing and shooting water at people from various hoses and knobs. There is also a huge bucket on top that dumps a ton of water at some unknown to me interval. The water comes down pretty hard; so, I don't recommend small kids hanging out under the water fall area.

It feels like a much larger play area and a small area at the same time. It is not a typical square shape (as you can see on the site). This makes it easy to keep to one area, or explore whole new areas. There are life guards at about the 2.5 foot water level to tell the smaller kids to keep to the shallower areas of the pool. The play pool is only 3 foot at the deepest; so, if you've got a little one and a bigger one you can easily follow the bigger one around while holding the littler one without getting the little one too wet.

I highly recommend going for some fun in the sun (or shade, they do have some shaded areas in the play-pool). Unlike another pool in the area, there are no play structures outside of the pool; however, there is a large amount of grass within the fenced in area around the pool. So, there is a place to play off the hot pavement while out of the water.

Ahhh, date night

The most welcome event, date night when it is not our turn to host. Tonight we headed to a local restaurant (Hall's on the River) and then took off into the woods . There is a nature preserve right behind the restaurant; so, we took a very pleasant hike. What hike wouldn't be pleasant when you can finally hike at your adult pace

This type of escapade is highly recommended in a funny book I've been reading, Babyproofing Your Marriage. If you don't have time to read, which you probably don't if you have young kids, click the link, it'll give you the highlights of the book.

When all else fails...

and mom feels a bit overwhelmed with the prospect of taking both of you searching for puddles for jumping, make your own puddles.

Warding Off Aliens?

You be the judge.

More Happy Camping

We've vowed to get outside together more as a family. Last weekend we headed out to the Red River Gorge for camping and hiking. After stopping to fill up with gas (read that as spent our life savings to put gas in the van), and a visit to a nearby Civil War Fort, we decided to forgo the long drive and just camp out at Boonesborough State Park. It was a Sunday afternoon; so, we had the camping area pretty much to ourselves.

While Morgan was off exploring and Michael was setting up camp and cooking dinner, I spent some quality time with Kenna.


Many people would consider rainy conditions as a sure nightmare for camping, but we had an enjoyable time. Morgan and Kenna didn't mind the wet weather at all since they were soaked from the nearby creek anyway. Morgan ended up wearing every bit of clothing we brought for her. Good thing we were only staying one night anyway. Each change of clothing coincides with a significant water event - falling in the creek, getting soaked by the rain, or sliding down the slide - think water shoot at the pool.

First outfit of the outing. Time worn while camping: about 3 hours (hiking, setting up tent, playing in creek). Reason for change: Falling in the creek. This is what she wanted to wear earlier in the day before we decided to pack up and go camping. It was spur of the moment, and we didn't want to fight changing. Note to anyone who buys clothes for my kids, they'll wear anything anywhere; so, don't expect it to last or keep clean.
Here's the happy camper in her post creek clothing. These clothes lasted about 1 hour. The slip-in-slide on the playground did the shorts in. We don't have a picture of the pants that she changed into after playing on the playground. I think those lasted the evening until PJ time.



In the morning, she's sporting a whole new outfit while playing in the creek. Total time worn: 30 minutes. Reason for change: Falling in creek - I'm starting to see a pattern here.

The final change. She only had the one warm jacket - that fell in the creek. She's got my thermal undershirt on, and stockings. At this point we decided that everyone had enjoyed the wet weather too much. We packed up and headed home around mid morning on Monday.

As we were driving home we realized that we still don't have our weekends straight yet. Morgan missed school because we completely forgot that we were supposed to take her that day! I occasionally hear her reenacting that with her animals! Good thing this is an easy going pre-school/play-school environment and not one of those public school, your kids better be here or we're coming after you places.