End of Summer Celebration

I decided that I needed to have a little get together of Rylee's friends over before the summer came to an end. So I made up some invites for some kids at school and then some of our neighbors and friends to come to our house on Saturday for some fun. This is my problem-I come up with these ideas and I think they are just great at the time and then I start to worry. I am a chronic worrier. 1st I worried that no one would come and then I worried that we wouldn't have enough food for the people that showed up. I ended up getting 30 hamburgers and 40 hotdogs just to make sure I had enough! We have enough to do 3 more BBQ's if we wanted. I know this is comical but I would rather be prepared and have more than not enough. It is a never ending battle for me. Anyway, we were just going to have a BBQ and let the kids play on the plunge. Justin and I had bought sidewalk chalk, water guns and tons of bubble stuff for the kids in case they got bored of the plunge. It ended up being loads of fun. At least I thought so-I hope others thought that as well. We had invited a total of 10 kids and then their parents if they wanted to stay and 8 kids ended up coming along with their parents so it was a pretty good turnout. They started playing on the plunge and then it seemed they got tired and I started freaking out. I'm thinking the party has just started. But then I broke out the doritos and the kids dug right in-I mean these kids were taking HUGE handfuls of doritos so I thought maybe it was time for lunch. We ate and then the kids were ready to go again. They played on the plunge again and they played with the water guns and then the sidewalk chalk and bubbles. I am glad that I got the chalk and bubbles because I wasn't quite sure that anybody would want to do that. Anyway, it went really well and I am already looking forward to next years party!

Lions and Tigers and Bears-Oh My!

This past Wednesday my mom and I went to pick up Andrew for a little visit. I took Friday off from work so I could spend the day with the kids. I took Rylee to her last swim lesson of the summer. She just loved it and did such a great job using her arms and sticking her face in the water as many times as she could. Such a proud mom I am as the other kids wouldn't put their faces in the water. She past to the next level which is Eel. Mom met me at the swim pool with Andrew so after Rylee's lesson I took the kids the the zoo. I had only learned that morning that Poppa Jack had already taken Andrew to the zoo the day before. But he said he wanted to go again so we did. It was a little chilly that morning but I think the kids had fun. We saw the snow leopard but no lions were out that morning and the tiger exhibit was closed for remodeling. So my title should just say Bears but how boring is that. I know there are no bears at the zoo but we will get to them later. At the end I bought them both a little souvenir so they could remember their fun trip to the zoo-Andrew got a tiger and Rylee got a snow leopard. And of course I forgot my camera which I am famous for so I have no pictures of our fun and even though we didn't get to see the lions here is how I imagined they would look.

Later Mom came to the house and we then headed over to Arctic Circle for lunch and fun on the toys for the kids. Rylee is always wanting to go play there. I hate it when the bigger kids play on it and take it over. It makes me very angry. After lunch we went back to teh house to play on The Plunge. Andrew was so excited for it (or so I thought) but once he got his swimsuit on he would have nothing to do with that slide. Rylee loved it. I felt bad though because I knew that once he went down it he would love it. I even called Nicole because I thought if she told him to go down it he would but nNot even his mom telling him to go down the slide or a candy bribe from me would do the trick-he wasn't having it. That night the kids had a sleepover with meemaw and pappa jack. They all had fun acting silly and eating smores.


Saturday we took the kids to Bear World. At first Rylee was a little scared because she didn't want the bears to get her but we kept telling her that we were in the car and they couldn't get us and she finally decided that she wanted to go. I could not believe how expensive Bear World is. It was $63 bucks for the 4 of us-I think someone is making some money. They do have rides there though and at least those are free. I think that was Rylee and Andrews favorite part were the rides. They rode the little roller coaster 3 times. Believe it or not I actually remembered my camera (thanks to Justin) so I have pictures! They also liked the petting zoo that Bear World has. It has chickens, goats, deer and a big pig. Rylee snorted at it and it snorted right back at her. It was hilarious. That girl can really snort! We tried to stay there as long as we could and ride the rides as many times as the kids wanted just so we could get our moneys worth. We then left to take the kids to lunch as we couldn't afford anything to eat at Bear World-it probably would have cost us another $50 for some hotdogs and hamburgers. It was a good day though and the kids had fun so that makes it worth the money-anything for the kids!