We Survived.

she made it home safe. Thank you Jesus.

Consider this your fair warning – this post is CHOCK FULL of pictures and is very long. Go refill your coffee or something.

she was up at 6:18 am this morning. Asking to watch cartoons. With her backpack on, fully dressed. That’s my Kealey! Just like her dad – has to be three and a half hours early to anything. (Vs. me, who is perfectly content to meander in whenever i darn well feel like it.)  We had a good (well not good healthy, but good tasting) breakfast of cinnamon rolls I started last nite, took lots of pictures, and went and waited for the bus with all the other kids and mommies. One of the neighborhood moms hosted a “Boo-Hoo Tea” for us, so that was a nice little break. Karissa and I managed to stay otherwise occupied with a few errands and i was actually able to be productive at work today also. So all in all, i can’t complain. And I hear a rumor that a certain Father of the Year has found THE SHOES in a Payless up in Minnesuckta so all is well in the Atkinson household. For a few hours at least. (no one move or breathe…)

 

(I am so proud of my domesticness today after being woken at the crackOdawn. Looky! I made lunch! And the sandwich was HEART SHAPED!!!! All together now… “awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!”)

I don’t know why my Bloggertool is randomly choosing dates to post, but it posted yesterday with today’s date so – to my darling 1st brother, joshua –

Happy

     Birthday!

I can’t ever find my normal font after I change it…that sucks.

 

Anyways – I hope that you have a great birthday, even if you don’t get Sakura till Monday. I don’t have a funny video of you dancing in the streets of San Diego to post like I did for Daniel, but I will always have our memories of driving across the country to go back to school. Of you getting my Weezer Blue Album and Green Day Dookie stolen in your bad string of luck with cars and aparments, of dressing you up and making you my playmate during those endless days of summer in Quincy. you’ve been a good friend and an awesome brother and now you have an amazing family of your own. Thanks for always being there for me – i miss having you around. Closer. But i hope you have a great birthday nonetheless. Pour out a Henry’s for your homies in the midwest. holla.

Ok – Vacation Review Time.

We had NO money and NO time set aside to actually take a real vacation this summer. For obvious reasons, Ben is doing his best to get all his terminal visits in this summer so that he can be close to home during the end of October through November, should the need arise. This plan actually makes me feel more at ease, so we have muscled through the long weeks of absences. however, it does sort of put a cramp in summer get-away plans. Having Kaylen in the middle of last summer, we obviously didn’t want to go anywhere, and the summer before that i was super busy with work out in Washington. So by about three weeks ago, I was starting to have serious cabin fever. i just needed to get AWAY – to somewhere, anywhere for anything. After hemming and hawing and researching online – we decided to take a quick 2 day getaway to a waterpark type place nearby, and we landed upon KeyLimeCove resort up in Gurnee. (PS – prepare to be blasted by fake caribbean steel drum music if you click on that link!!! Consider yourself warned!)

anyways – we had told the girls we were going to take them to a NASCAR RACE for a special get-away before school started. The girls groan and moan EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY afternoon when we get home from church and Ben cranks up the surround sound for the infamous “Gentlemen! Start Your Engines!!!” and the whole house rumbles and sounds essentially like 32 stock racing cars are driving through the middle of it. We expected that they would be equally as upset about having to go to a real race in the heat – but unfortunately that kind of backfired on us. They all of a sudden became UBER excited about the prospect of going to a real race…leaving us to wonder if our real plan would actually be as fun…But anyways, after church on sunday we packed up while they were at a birthday party, and then we headed up. They blessedly slept the whole drive up, and on a Sunday afternoon, it was quite a nice little drive. We got there and checked in and the girls still had no idea what was going on – till we walked past the check in desk and they saw the huge floor to ceiling windows looking out on the waterpark. Their eyes got very big and they began jumping up and down excitedly – “Can we go SWIMMING TOO!!!?!?!?!?” We get back to our rooms and they kept asking when the race started and when we got to go swimming. i swear i was STILL explaining to Karissa yesterday that there WAS NO NASCAR RACE. The surprise was coming to swim and play instead.

As to the resort itself, i was very impressed with the size of the rooms, and the price, which includes your waterpark admission for two days, really was very reasonable, compared to Six Flags or other local waterpark options.  The staff/lifeguards/restaurant workers – everyone was VERY friendly and knowledgeable and helped make it a great stay. Your room key is your waterpark wristband – which is just one of the many small ways they really have thought through making it EASY to stay there. No fumbling with key cards in a wet swimsuit with no pockets – you just swipe your wristband. You can pay for food at the pool, get arcade tokens, open your room door – all with the ADULT wristbands.

The waterpark itself had a good variety of waterslides, activity pools for older kids ANd babies, and a wave pool/lazy river combo where Kaylen and I spent most of our time. I don’t think that if we had older kids (say junior high age) that it would have been as entertaining for them, but it was PERFECT for the ages our kids are right now. It wasn’t too crowded, there was good control by the lifeguards so the young punks didn’t get out of hand, and they weren’t all anal retentive about the waterslide height requirement thing IF you went down with your child as the parent. It worked out great. The girls had a blast, everyone slept good that nite, and we were able to get up the next morning, have breakfast, and head back to the pool. My parents met us Sunday nite for a good dinner at the resort restaurant, so the girls enjoyed that. And we splurged on the ridiculously overpriced ice cream as a special treat. We ended up leaving around 11 (which was check out time) but really only because Kaylen had hit the wall and we really had no place to lay her down for a nap at that point. The girls were pretty waterlogged too and didn’t put up too much of a fight to leave.

So not a LONG get away – but enough to feel refreshed and just get a recharge. i hope they enjoyed it and remember it. I hope we get to go back sometime in the dead of winter and enjoy it again!

and I think that’s all I have for tonite. I am wiped again and we have a long very busy day ahead of us tomorrow again.

Thanks for all the support and well wishes from my overly emotional posts the last few days. i’ll get back to my usual sarcastic biting wit soon – stay tuned!

 

peace out.

terra