Montezuma Fun!

So after all the swimming/diving lessons were over, I was feeling like my days were becoming structureless (is that a word?), and unproductive. I decided it was time to plan some fun activities. The first one was a swim party for friends. I made chicken salad sandwiches, and everyone brought their favorite dish. It was a lot of fun catching up with everyone, and the kids had a blast, too. Definitely need to do that more next year.

The following week I decided that a trip back to Montezuma's Well was in order. A nice cool day at that park sounded like fun. However, the weather channel kept predicting rain. The day I planned on going, I checked the computer and it said scattered thundershowers. At first I threw in the towel, but then something said, "Just Go!" So I packed up lunches, some sporting gear, and we headed out.

When we first got there, we all sat down and had lunch. That was nice! After lunch, it was very hot, and I spent about 30 minutes setting up a net for badminton. When I finally got it up, I quickly realized my kids had NO idea how to play. They couldn't even hit the birdie. I was a little frustrated (and hot) and thought, "why did I come up here again?".

I decided it was time to play some baseball under the shade! First we warmed up with some throwing. Then we took turns at bat. Everyone got to hit the ball 4 times. We used 3 trees (in perfect position) as the bases, and with each hit would see how bases we could run. The kids had a blast doing that! Sophia just explored why we played. It was amazing how easy she was! Nature makes for a good babysitter:)

After baseball, we played a few games of crochet.

While we were doing that, Sophia found the small "creek" and started playing in it. She had the right idea getting all wet!

After crochet, we iced ourselves down and then played some volleyball.

It was getting hot, and we were running out of water, so I took our empty water bottles to the water fountain. As I was doing that, I heard Boston screaming. He had a racket in his hand and he was running all around. As I looked closer I could see that a bug was chasing him. It was the funniest thing. It finally stopped and then they all had a good laugh.

When I got back Boston and I played some more badminton, and he really started catching on. In the mean time Sophia and Aubrie took a walk through the "creek" and when they got back I joined them. Boston came over to see what we were up to, and we started to try and push each other in. Boston got more wet than he wanted, and started to get frustrated. So I just jumped in to distract him. Soon we were all getting wet, and it felt great! At that moment I thought, "This is a great day! I'm so glad to be here!" I decided that gymnastics would be skipped for the day so we could stay longer.

We played some more baseball, climbed trees, played more crochet, and sat under a tree and relaxed.

We ended our day with some more badminton. It was Aubrie and I against Boston. We were having fun, until I started hearing this buzzing by my ear. I kept thinking how weird it was that it wasn't going away. Then the kids yelled, "Bee!" I started running from it and it chased me! I ran all around the net, to the car, around the car, back to the net and it kept pursuing me. It was scary in the middle of it, but when it finally stopped, we all were laughing so hard. The kids wanted to play some more and I said, "NO WAY"! They finally convinced me, and the bee started attacking me again. I'm thinking he wasn't a fan of badminton. I finally stopped, and then it started chasing Aubrie and Boston. I finally decided it was time to go. We quickly put the rackets away and packed up the net. As we were walking to the car, the bee started chasing me again. I quickly hopped in the car and shut the door. After it left, I hurried all the kids in the car and threw all our stuff in the back. We all had a good laugh once we were all safe in the car. I think it defiantly will be a memory they have forever; their Mom running around screaming as a bee chases her!

On the way home the kids were complaining they were hungry. I stopped at the gas station and gave them money to get what they wanted. I waited in the car with Sophia. They LOVE when I let them do stuff like that on their own. I was wondering how they would determine what to buy with the seven dollars I gave them. I was impressed. They all bought something for themselves, Sophia and surprised me my new favorite candy bar (TWIX). They even came back with a dollar fifty!

About five minutes into the drive it started raining really hard. It didn't rain once the whole time at the park. I'm glad I listened to the spirit and not the weatherman, because I would have missed out on an amazing day of fun and memories with my children!

Our new family additions

So in attempt to catch up on the last half of July, I think I'll start with our new pets. It started off with Sophia seeing a lizard under the trampoline. Aubrie crawled under there and caught it and put it in a Tupperware container. She asked me if she could keep it and I told her "sure", assuming it wouldn't make it long. She then got online to see what lizards eat. She called Ben to pick up some crickets from the pet store. Aubrie also asked him to get him a light and a container. Again, I thought there was no harm in this. The poor thing needed to eat, and how much room is a little container and light going to take up? Well I should have known better, because Ben doesn't ever do anything simple. He came home with this thing!

I was like, "Where are we supposed to put it? This thing needs to go back!' Then miraculously the desk in the office was clean, and this is where it went. Well, when the small lizard was in the thing, it started to seem ridiculous at how big the aquarium was in comparison to the small lizard!

So then it became a quest to hunt down another lizard to give the first one a friend, and to somewhat fill in the vast space of his home. Finally they found one. A bigger one! He got the end of his tail cut off in the process, but that's the good thing about lizards, he'll have another soon.

So now we are a family of 5 pets, and are making frequent runs to Petsmart for baby crickets. Luckily it's close by.