Mommin' It Up!

June 7, 2011June 7, 2011

Fort Rapids Memories

Over the weekend, Jenny and I had the opportunity to take our families to Fort Rapids, an indoor water park in Columbus, Ohio. We had a great time, and it was so fun to all go somewhere together!

We stayed in the Bright Angel Villa – here’s the description from the website:
The Bright Angel suite features a spacious living room w/ sleeper sofa, kitchenette and fireplace, 2 bedrooms one with a king bed and the other offers 2 queen beds. The additional loft offers a king bed and private bath and a bunk room with bunk beds.

I think the kids would have been content to stay in the “apartment” as they called it all weekend – they had a blast running all over the place and playing hide and seek. The villa sleeps 12, and (unfortunately) we pretty much had the opportunity to try out every. single. sleeping combination possible, as our kids could not get it together at bedtime. But that’s another story!

Once we hit the water park, though, the kids never wanted to leave.

The kids had a great time, and we did too. We all enjoyed watching the kids have fun together – and we loved the water slides as much as they did! And when the kids finally went to sleep and Jenny, Bobby, Andy and I started playing board games… well, I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time.

Big thanks to Fort Rapids for hooking us up with a place to stay and with water park passes!

June 6, 2011

Summer Legs

Saturday morning as I was gearing up for a visit to the Fort Rapids Water Park with Emily and our families (which we’ll tell you about tomorrow!), I did that crazy thing that we women must do when the jeans come off and the shorts and swimsuits go on – I shaved my legs.

And of course, like I do, I cut myself. And Summer, that greedy season, got it’s blood sacrifice, the one it always demands from the legs of the big and small who go running and jumping around in the nice weather. I call them “Summer Legs”.

On her last day of preschool, Sophie stumbled as we were getting into our van and scraped her knee pretty good. It bled and everything! It was very tragic. And very fitting to have happened the second she was released from school and into the summer sun!

Since that moment, her legs have never looked back. At every park or backyard play date we’ve had, they’ve taken another hit, another ode to play. What can I say? The girl has her mother’s grace.

I have used the term “summer legs” so often the past couple weeks, that the other day when I was wiping a big smudge of dirt off of her legs (nothing like a quick baby wipes bath when you’re in a hurry, right!?), she said, “Thank you for helping me clean my summer legs.” Such a cutie!

Joshua’s legs have mostly been protected by school uniform pants, but he gets out tomorrow at noon, so his legs are sure to get summery soon. (And hopefully tan. Man, my kids are white!)

It’s summer! Wednesday we’ll celebrate both big kids being out of school by hitting the pool. How are you celebrating? And how are your kids’ “summer legs” looking?

June 3, 2011

Sophie Lou Retton

A couple of months ago I started thinking of ideas to keep Sophie busy this summer since she L-O-V-E-S school so much and I am not nearly as interesting as her teachers and classmates, and 4 half-days a week is a lot of time to kill! So, after seeing some tweets from Tricia that she had taken her daughter to gymnastics, I thought Sophie would probably enjoy that, too! So this week I signed her up. Wednesday was her first class.

I showed her pictures online of the gym where her lessons would be. We went to Target and bought a leotard. She was SO excited! And terribly cute.

I was a little worried about how she’d act but she was the perfect little follower. She just did what everyone else was doing, and asked for help when she needed it.

She jumped and tumbled, fell down and got back up, and had an amazing time. I watched through the viewing window enraptured as she acted like she’d been there a million times instead of just once. (In attitude, that is. In apparatus, well, it will take a few lessons.)

It was the most fun I’ve had in 45 minutes in a long time . I can’t wait to go back and watch her next week! She can’t wait, either. She cried and cried when it was over…and on and off the whole way home. She kept saying, “I wanna go back! Go back! Go back!” She fell in love at first tumble!

I’ll keep you posted on her progress. 🙂

How are you keeping your kids busy this summer?