Lagoon and Roller Skating

Normally, I am a rather picture-heavy blogger.  But unfortunately, sometimes I would rather enjoy what is going on and play with my kiddos than drag along a big honkin camera.  And these last two activities fell under that category.  I have a feeling that means everyone will skim right over this post, but in the end, I did want to write down what we did this week, even without pictures.


First of all, last Saturday we got to go to Lagoon as a family.  Christopher's Aunt had some discount tickets for the day.  Not only was this the first time the kids had gone, but the first time for me as well!  I have to say, it was a really awesome day.  They have a "Kiddieland" with about 10 or so little rides for the kids, and they were grinning from ear to ear.  The park was busy, but they could still just walk on almost every ride.  In some ways, that was even better than Disneyland for them - much less downtime between it all. 


We met up with Christopher's family for lunch and then hung out with them for a while.  Christopher's Aunt even offered to watch the kids while we rode a big ride with his cousins.  I felt bad, since the ride broke while we were in line for Wicked, so we were gone quite a while waiting for it to start back up - but I think Aunt Janette seemed genuinely happy with our little ones.  They are at a really fun age for the park - all she had to do was help them get from one ride to another, and they were as happy as they could be.


After separating from family, we went to the water park area so the kids could swim.  Once again, the kiddie area was awesome, and all we had to do was wander around and keep an eye on them as they ran around as happy as can be.  Kaitlyn said that was one of her favorite parts of the day, and cried when we tried to get her to leave hours later.


But the true moment to remember came as we were packing up to leave the swim area. When we got there, we changed clothes and put everything at our stroller. But I was still wearing my shoes, since they were water shoes. But when we got to the swim area, Kaitlyn told me to take them off - she had to take hers off, after all! And I thought, might as well. I saw some other people's things around a utility box off to the side, and hid my shoes and watch behind it. But when I went back for them afterward, my stuff was gone. Keep in mind, the shoes were $5 from Wal-Mart, and the watch was $10 at Target. So I figured no one in their right mind would steal them. And yet, the lost and found had nothing. Great. Seriously, who steals shoes? Crappy, dirty shoes, no less?



So we head to the exit. The entrance to Lagoon-a-beach from Lagoon proper is actually a store with swimsuits, sunscreen, flip-flops and such in case you didn't have everything you needed. So at least this was a solvable problem. But the teenage girl at the exit stopped us. "You have to have your shoes on to leave."


"Well, I would love to, but they are stolen. So we're just going to buy some more right now."


"I'm sorry, you aren't allowed. He'll have to go buy some for you and bring them back," pointing to my husband.


This stopped us both in our tracks. "Um, my shoes were stolen. It's not like I'm doing this on purpose. And they are right there!"


My husband, on the other hand, went with "and what if I don't?" which is a question I would still like answered. What if I had been alone? What would have been this girl's plan then? Keep me there until the park closed and I get escorted out by security?


It was a lousy end to an awesome day. Thankfully, my husband did a decent job of picking out flip-flops for me that were only four times the price of the ones that were stolen. I'm sure the teenage girl was just following her instructions, but . . . ugh.






Anyway, this week was Tyler's last week of Summer School. I have loved having him there, but I must say I am happy to not make that 20 minute drive each way again for a while! Their last outing was going roller skating. When I heard that, I really wasn't sure what to think. Of all the things we do with our kids, I never would have thought they were ready for that! But you know what, Tyler thought it was honestly the best activity ever. He was giggling and smiling for an hour and a half straight as he flopped around his feet and tried to balance. "I am roller skating!" Since I spent most of my time holding him up, I only got a couple of pictures, and my point and shoot couldn't handle the lighting well. But rest assured, he was absolutely in heaven.

He kept on giggling and laughing long after the other kiddos quit and wandered off, and then suddenly said "I am ALLL done!" in his same happy voice, and sat down.

 
And now, we will just have to go back again soon, because Kaitlyn has been incredibly jealous about the whole thing.  Who knew?