Holiday World

For her birthday this year, all Jordan wanted was to go to Holiday World Splashin' Safari. It is a huge water park, with so many water slides, play areas, etc. it is all around fun for the whole family. It is called Holiday World because it is in the little town of Santa Claus, IN. I kid you not, the name of the town is Santa Claus. How cool/weird is that. Let's just say the Christmas reigns there, and it is all year round. Even at the park, the real Santa is there to tell the kiddos stories, and take request along with pictures. They also have an amusement park with many fun rides.

I can't get over this place, they take your picture and instead of charging an arm and a leg like most amusement parks, you download it for free. You also get all the free soda pop you can drink all day, free sunscreen, and in our case free band-aids. They even have reasonably priced food! It is so family oriented, modest dress is the thing which is so nice, because who wants to explain to their kids why people are half dressed.

Needless to say, we had a wonderful time and I'm sure we'll be back again next year. Maybe the kids will actually enjoy the world's longest water coaster or tallest dropping water ride. They sure enjoyed the bumper cars, carousel, and the many other rides we went on in the "dry" park.

Fun Friday's

In an effort to keep my kids from being bored this summer, I instigated Fun Friday's. Each Friday we set out on an adventure of some kind. The first one we went to a zoo and park then to McDonald's for lunch as a special treat, this particular Friday we had planned on going to another park to hike the trails and play, but it was so blasted hot that the kids and I opted for an indoor fun project. We went to our local Michael's store and bought some paper lanterns and decorations.

After a swim in the pool we were inside in the AC to have a lot of fun.

This project took many hours and the best thing about it was that there was no fighting at all!

I don't think these lanterns could take any more glitter glue or stick on's, but the kids had fun and will love them hanging in their bedrooms.

Strawberry Jam

My son eats strawberry jam on his pb sandwich every day. So when my sis in law suggested going and picking some yummy sweetness I jumped at the idea. Here are our boxes. Unfortunately we went on the very last day, so they were kind of small and sparse, but I was happy with what I ended up picking. I would have ended up with a lot more if my little berry thief Jordan had not stolen so many off the vine and box and eaten them! I made regular and low sugar freezer jam. Oh My Gosh! it is so much better than the store bought stuff. I think we'll do this again next year.

After the storm

Living in Indiana you get used to bad thunderstorms, you just hope the tornado doesn't decide to drop down on top of your house. Hail, blinding rain, it all comes with the territory. We had one of those yesterday. In fact the tornado hit just south of my parents house by a few miles. You know there has been a tornado when the air turns green. Yes, the atmosphere itself is green. One of the weirdest things you can ever see if you are not used to it.

After the storm was over I went outside to look around. These were the clouds. I can't describe to you how it actually looked to see the whole sky looking like someone had run their hand across the clouds and smeared them. You can see off in the distance normal looking clouds, then they just seem to spread out longer and longer. I thought it was pretty cool, just wish the camera had picked up the yellow/green color of them.

My little munchkins

Here are my little munchkins waiting to go to church. They are crazy fun kids and I love them so much.

You want me to what?

My daughter's boyfriend is 21 and has never been on a trampoline in his life, EVER! He has also never gone to a theme park, ridden a roller coaster, gone down a water slide or done many of the other things that makes our family life a pleasure to live. Poor kid, I don't know how he has lived thus far. Kate trying to rectify these things took him to a small water park in our town. They were having a great time in the lazy river etc... When they got to the top of the water slide to go down for the first time Kate slid down, wheee.... Steven however was stopped. A thunderstorm had moved in and for safety's sake he could not go down. Cancel water slide.
She brought him over to our house the other night to visit and decided he needed to jump on the trampoline. He didn't really want to, they were forbidden by his parents, but after much cajoling from Kate, he went out. Of course after one jump the trampoline broke. Broke!! How the heck did that happen? I think Steven is highly traumatized and will probably never get on a trampoline again.

They have planned to go to a theme park/water park on the 19Th. Kate is now having 2ND thoughts, she thinks her plan to introduce Steven to everything he has missed out on is jinxed. I think she may be right.

Baby Rabbits In The Back Yard

My husband is such a kidder. He calmly told us how he ran over 2 baby rabbits with the lawn mower. Then proceeded to tell us how they are just fine, ran away unharmed. They were in their hole at the time. Dork! We caught one of them Sunday night. He was is cute, that is unless he eats my flowers, then my opinion will change very quickly!

"Special Agent Spy 101"

I love my boy so much, he is so fun, and full of childish imagination. For instance, at school he won a pair of sunglasses that have mirrors at the sides so you can see behind you. These are now his spy glasses. He has been walking around the house saying "Special agent spy 101." This is of course along with his "karate" moves.





















Just look at those cute blue eyes. Spy? Maybe not.





























Although the muscles are coming along a little bit.

You just have to love childhood.