Bounce-Back Day at Lagoon

We had planned on taking Ben and Emily with us to Lagoon again for the bounce-back day, but changed that plan at the last minute. Lately, it seems our kids have come to expect lots of fun activities and they have forgotten that those fun things are tied to how well they behave. They needed a reminder and we needed a day to just be together as a couple. It all worked out splendidly. Grandma Reatha came and spent the whole day with the kids. (We didn’t tell them where we were going since we didn’t want her to have to listen to whining the whole day.) They had a movie marathon, built puzzles, played games and had a grand time together. Abby has a history of being a little shy and/or grumpy with anyone who doesn’t live in this house, but by the end of the day she had really warmed up to Grandma and they were great friends.

Nate and I had a fabulous time. It has been a really long time since we have had an all day date. I’ll admit that for the first hour or so, it felt kind of funny to not have the kids with us. I’m so used to doing the things that they want that it was a little disconcerting to have so much freedom to do whatever we wanted. We got over that pretty quickly and just had a whole lot of fun. We decided part way through the day that we wanted to check out Lagoon-A-Beach. We went to Kohl’s in Centerville and bought a couple of swimsuits, stopped for lunch, and headed back to the park. We spent some time playing at the water park (our spontaneous plan didn’t include sunblock - - Nate’s chest and arms look like a lobster) and then hit some more rides. We love our kids and we love doing fun things with them. That being said, it was really nice to be so free . . . no stroller, no taking 8 trips to the bathroom, no crying. In the course of the day, we witnessed lots of kids having meltdowns and lots of parents with frustrated, worn-out looks on their faces. We just smiled.

Here we are at the start of the day. No kids = no camera. We did a couple of self portraits with Nate’s cell phone.

Here we are after being drenched on Cliffhanger. There was literally not one dry spot on us. We were still pretty wet three hours later when we left to go home.