Family Fun In the Sun

I had wondered this week if, once all the visitor left, those of us that live here would retreat to our various homes to recover and not see much of each other.  Instead we experienced a nice little break in the heat wave we had been having and had an excuse to get outside both with our immediate fam and with cousins.

Last Sunday evening we went with Ben and Becca's family and Maude on a little walk down by the river.  In the spirit of full disclosure, this was before the break in the heat and it was quite toasty.  We still had a nice time, but Carrigan got tired more easily than she might otherwise have and quickly began asking for me to "hold you, me".  All along the trail Jeremy kept trying to relieve me and take a turn carrying C.C. but each time was told "Mama hold you, me".  Finally he convinced her to come to him by offering a ride on his shoulders and assuring her I would not do the same.

Over the course of the week we played with cousins at our house, at their house and at several parks.  Of course we miss Kai, but I am so thankful that my kids have the chance to build these close relationships with their cousins.

The other highlight of the week was that Jeremy had Wednesday off of work (this meant that he had to work yesterday but we won't talk about that part).  We decided to make the most of his time off with a little mid-week adventure.  Tuesday night we met Jeremy at the theater as soon as he got off work and saw the "Minion" movie.  The kids definitely liked it, but I will say is was not as good as the "Despicable Me" movies.

The fun continued the next morning when we went to Oak's Amusement Park park for their preschool rides morning that is geared towards kids 6 and younger.  It was fun to be able to ride some rides without worrying about big kids and rides that were too scary (for Merrick anyway, some were still too scary for Carrigan).  Our fatal mistake, however, came on our very first ride.  It looked innocent enough, but spun us around like nobody's business.  C.C. was not pleased and it took her much of the rest of the morning to warm back up to idea of riding the rides.  She did like the VERY slow moving train ride though, it was just her speed.  At one point she decided she wanted to ride a car ride that required she ride by herself.  She was happy until the ride started, then she went from scared to seriously put out that she could not get off the ride (check out her face in the pictures).   What really cracked me up was we would be walking along and she would see a poster with a cut-out for a photo opp and she would immediatly break off and head towards it saying "I need to smile."  She would then stick her head through the hole and wait for someone to join her and/or someone to take her picture.  She is certainly a girl who knows what she wants.