Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Out With A Bang

We are packing a lot into the last few weeks of summer. The boys had a tremendously wonderful time at Idlewild on Saturday. They went on the big rides, "all the ones we never go on" ([when you are with us] was clearly implied, LOL). Even Jonathan rode a lot of these rides, although Bob said there was an interesting phenomenom going on there. Jonathan rode most of the rides and regretted it many times (culminating in wild panic in the middle of the roller coaster ride). Caleb sat out several of the rides, although afterwards he wished he had gone. LOL! Idlewild is actually a great amusement park for kids because the rides (even the "big" rides) are normal, not the terrorizing "people just died on this last week" type rides that you seem to find most of the time in your big amusement parks. So really I was not alarmed to hear that my precious babies were riding them or anything, LOL. They didn't get to the hotel until close to 10:00. At that time, I was happily down in my cool basement, scrapbooking and watching HGTV in blissful peace and quiet. Well, you know, we can't all have those thrilling excitement-filled weekends!

Sunday they went to church, and then over to Bob's brother's house. The kids swam in the pool and played on the trampoline with their cousins. They got back here about 9:00, tanned (only Jonathan got a bit burned) and tired, but bursting full of stories about what fun they had. I've still listening to them!

Yesterday we went over to Johanna's house. Nathan calls it "the coolest house in the world". For one thing, her boys have a huge Lego collection, so that built up massive cool points right off the bat. They also have 4.6 acres, both wooded and cleared areas, a boy's dream. Nathan and Luke played football with Russ and Zeke, and then they all played in the 2-story treehouse. They topped that off by swimming awhile in their lovely in-ground pool with a diving board. So now maybe you can see why Nathan was so impressed, LOL!

The only problem was that they have 5 dogs, including an adorable little puppy and an ancient husky. Anna was terrified of each and every one, no matter how unthreatening they were, or even how near they were. One dog was outside, looking in the windows, and you would have thought he was on top of Anna, for how loudly she cried and how she tried to shimmy up my leg like it was a tree trunk. Good grief. Hopefully this stage will pass soon for Anna, since animals are not the only thing she acts this way for. She also is terrified of women who cover (like Muslims), and since we live in a very multi-cultural city, this can make a simple trip to Walmart quite embarrassing and humiliating.

Anyhow, it was such a fun day, and we're hoping we can do it again before the weather turns cold. Of course, with how hot it's been recently, it's hard to even fathom when that might happen!

Sunday we leave to drive back to Ohio for 2 weeks. Bob is going to drive out with us, and then he may or may not catch a hop back to Andrews, depending on what the planes are doing. At any rate, we'll drive to White Sulphur Spring for the Wright-Pat OCF retreat Labor Day weekend, and then home that Monday. THEN school will officially start, along with soccer, co-op, and all the other things we have going on! Summer will truly be over. But first . . . a visit with family and friends.

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