We play hard!
Honestly it kind of freaks me out, I come from a work hard background. Maybe a play never mindset. For me growing up Family vacations were trips to Panguitch Lake where my dad could work, fixing fence. As kids we played but that was not something responsible adult would do-ever- I played hard, but because it was always in the athletic realm I thought I was “working hard” so it was acceptable. I don’t why I wrote that…maybe I’m afraid we play too much??? Hopefully it all counts as family “wholesome recreational activities” 😉 Anyway about this play’n hard—I’ll tell ya what we’ve been up to:
We made it to Hays last week at about 2:30 in the morning then all crammed into one little hotel room with 2 double beds. Colt and Seth slept on the floor, Tanner and Cannon on one bed, Addi Isaac and I on the other. If you’re wondering why we didn’t just keep driving…I was too. I have just as much room laying down in the middle of the van.
The pic above was right before the meltdown.
I wish the next line was we survived and made it to Worlds of Fun. But before that we have to document the complete disaster. The kids wanted to watch tablets but Isaac wanted them to wait until we only had a 1/2 hour of our drive left, well, Colt had to pee and we were 39 minutes away from World of Fun, when we got back in the car, the kids were tired of hearing “you’ve been really good, I really appreciate it but we’re going to wait a little bit longer” (and they were tired, tired too) but they snapped. All of them. Pretty much at once—maybe except Seth but Addi was screaming and carrying on, Tanner went RAGE mode and I don’t know what all he said except that it would be better if Isaac was on mars, Cannon went snotty teenager and told us how the only reason the tablets are an issue is because of our pride (it has nothing to do with their behavior afterward…or in this case before🙄) Colt right behind Cann on the snotty teenager mode “called it all” that dad wasn’t really going to let them do it and could basically predict the future. Oh man I’m exhausted all over again just typing about it. I could’ve probably told a little better story if I’d done it in the moment…I thought about it but…didn’t. Anyway, then nobody wanted lunch and no body wanted to go to Worlds of Fun and everyone just wanted to go home. But no way were we not going after we had spent the night. So we ordered pizza (supposedly ahead of time but ot took forever) and went to the park. “You’re gunna have fun whether you like it or not!” …basically!
Isaac and Cannon got in line for a roller coaster the other kids and I headed for the water park.
Nightmare.
There were so many people-we stay away from the lake on Saturdays-why wouldn’t we have thought of that? I had to deal with the kids and changing clothes-then trying to keep track of everything. Colt did not want to be there, Addi had skinned her knee that morning and refused to get her bandaid wet, I caught Tanner smiling!
I think that was a good sign. It was a fun place (too many people but…) it was just tricky trying keep everyone with a buddy but Addi wouldn’t do anything. Finally after and hour or so Isaac and Cannon came back -said their ride was fun- then he took the younger kids (got Addi to get in) and basically forced the 3 big boys and I to go do the mat race. It was pretty fun. We almost did it again but instead went on a tube one. When we divide and conquer I don’t usually get the big kids but it was fun. (I did, however, learned that I’m super claustrophobic in those tube slides— I don’t like it when you can’t see any light or anything in fact, I hate—but I still think I won the race 😉 ) Anyway after our two slide rides we met back up with Isaac Addi and Seth they had fun too, The plan was to just find one small roller coaster that everybody could do on our way out of the park and head for home… We found something called the red Mustang that Addi was tall enough for and it was red and it had a horse on it so she was sold… But then they were hooked and they wanted to stay and do one more ride. I bet I said one more ride seven or eight times!
The bigs did the detonator, not far from there was Snoopy land-and boy did they like those airplanes (Addi only rode behind Seth once then she wanted to Fly her own!!)
By the time we finally left, we weren’t gonna get home until almost 11 o’clock but we still need to eat so once we factored that and we were gonna be past 11 o’clock so Walmart would be closed, we had to find a place that had a Walmart on the way so we could grab some food for Sunday and some milk be able to survive till we made a real trip to the grocery store. We stopped at Walmart in Chillicothe (Questionable travel dinner at best, but we’d had our site set on KFC and it just didn’t work out…but nobody starved) and we rolled in about 11:15.
Belle was super happy to see us-and met us down by the gate, but we couldn’t actually drive up the driveway because it was washed out so we tried to drive up the front yard but the van didn’t make it pulling those motorcycles 😬 we parked in the middle of the front yard took up what we had to and left the rest for another day.
And took the truck to church Sunday morning!
Tanner was unbearable Sunday. Tired ❌ hungry ❌ (it was fast Sunday and that dinner was…not the best…) and then later I found out he was sick ☹️ pretty sure that’s the 3rd strike ❌ he slept most of the day once we got home but we did stay extra for a Jack Hilton’s baptism.
Monday Seth got on the motorcycle and Cann wanted to practice wheelys
I did Mountains of laundry and worked on getting the boys ready for the youth Branson trip. Addi woke up with the same thing Tanner had had but luckily he was feeling better. Later that evening, she was laying on the living room floor and she kept telling me something but she’s so hard to understand— I finally figured out she was saying “I’m sick as a dog!” It was pretty funny and pretty sad! Colt buddy had been missing the lake so we had a lake trip planned for that night but I ended up staying home with Addi and Seth so Isaac had me text Hayley and the older Page kids went. We only had two spare seats in the truck, but they just drove down and met them. They were late getting out and LATE coming home but I think everyone had fun.
Got the boys off Tuesday morning and fed the missionaries and their friend that night. Addi’s preschool teacher and classroom helper stopped by, she has Ms Chrissie this year, which both Tanner and Seth have had, but I was just glad they stopped by a day the living room was already picked up and we didn’t look like as big of pigs! I didn’t know if the boys were having fun in Branson or not, but it was worth making them go for the conversation I had with Tanner that night in his room that for that moment was his own room. Sometimes …often…things weigh pretty heavy on him. I was actually so frustrated with him earlier and kind of just told him to snap out of it, but then he came in while I was trying to get the younger kids to bed and screamed at me “you’re not helping” Screaming at me was not ideal, but I also recognized Oh crud he’s right, so eventually I went in and tried to just listen. It took a while (it was pretty dang late) but eventually he was able to unload a little and he seemed to feel okay about life.
Wednesday was awesome—I mostly had my happy boy back! I need to figure out how to help him so it can always be that way. Maybe I just need to find chances to listen to him better. 🤷🏻♀️
Wednesday after Seth and Addi prayed and prayed for it…we totally took them back to Worlds of Fun! Just a little day trip—long—but pretty fun. (And now if we never go again at least the passes we bought were “worth it” ) While the brothers were at a theme park in Branson, we went back to the one in KC!
Tann was Isaac’s roller coaster buddy so I didn’t get near as many pics of them but they went on all the big ones. I stayed with Addi and Seth (he did do 1 or 2 big ones but he hated them…but liked saying he’d done them) my only mistake was the teacups 🤢
I don’t know what we did (except recover) Thursday and the boys got home but it was LATE! I almost stayed up for them…almost. Oh I cleaned out the filthy van…now if would just get after the house …🤔
Today’s been pretty chill. I worked on YW stuff and then tried to clean pics off my phone…I’m sure I did more than that but we’re going too call that good—
Until next time!!
