Summer Adventures...

... Are Wearing Me Out!

I'm behind... again... as far as blogging goes. Seems that I never stop running long enough to sit down and write about it here lately!

Last week, Phil, Seth, and Grace went off to camp, so Caleb, Ian, and I decided we needed an adventure of our own. On Monday our plans were kind of thrown for a loop, and we ended up just hanging around home most of the day and then goin' to "The Rat Place" (AKA Chuck-E-Cheese) in the evening. We spent tons of tokens, earned relatively few tickets, and came home with lots of prizes, because the girls working the prize counter thought the boys were super cute!

On Tuesday we headed to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo, which we enjoyed a lot. Ordinarily, I do not "splurge" on rides when we visit the zoo. However, since there were only three of us it made the prices a little more reasonable, so we rode everything! It was on the "Sky Safari" that it occurred to me that although I have never been afraid of heights, I do have a pretty huge fear of falling from high places... particularly while holding on to two small, wiggly children! Caleb actually did a pretty job sitting still once I explained to him exactly how I expected him to position himself and not to move. Ian... well, that's another story... Unfortunately, I have almost no pictures of the animals (except the ones that live at my house). I had a pretty good pic. of Caleb with the lion, but when I downloaded it must have gotten lost in the process. Thinking everything had transferred alright, I erased all of the images from the camera... ugh! I do have some nice pics. of us on the rides and exploring the zoo:

After the other half of our family returned home, we spent a couple of days cleaning up from camp and then took a trip to Cedar Point!

It was definitely a fun trip, but not "classic" Cedar Point by any stretch of the imagination. This can most accurately be understood by the list of things we did not ride... calypso, turnpike cars, antique cars, cedar downs, raptor, thunder canyon, wave swinger, matterhorn, super himalaya, scrambler, even the carousel (for crying out loud)... not among the things we rode this time around...

However, Seth and Grace hit the 52" mark this year, so they got to experience a whole lot of new things including MaxAir, Wicked Twister, Skyhawk, Power Tower Up and Down, and Magnum for Grace (Seth took his first spin on Magnum last summer). Ian also rode his first coaster (well, unless we count Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, seven months before he was born). His assessment of Woodstock Express was, "I don't wike this wide"... Below are pics. of first time coaster experiences:

Amazingly enough, we actually didn't take a whole lot of pictures while we were there. I guess I've been dropping the ball all summer long in this regard. We did pretty much ride till we dropped, though, and arrived home at 3:15am! My quote of the trip comes from our friend Avalyn, "Lisa... I like that ride... It makes me sick!" How's that for making a new generation of adrenaline junkies...

I can never quite understand why I look so forward to the end of the school year but as we turn the corner into August I am ready for it all to begin again... Not that we are starting in August... NO WAY!!! One of the nice advantages of homeschooling is that we can run a normal school schedule Labor Day to Memorial Day, get all of the work in, ace the placement tests, and enjoy life a little bit! However, I am starting to look forward to the structure that comes along with Fall...

Until then...

Lisa