I love that the kids are off-track and we can take advantage of doing things that we most likely wouldn't do because of time constraints and homework on the weekdays and and games on the weekends. This year, Whitney got us free tickets to the Scarecrow Festival, so we met up with her and her boys to spend the day together at Thanksgiving Point.
Last year the wait in the lines for rock climbing and the bungee tramps were about an hour each...uggh! We spent most of our time in the rock climing line and so the kids never got to try the bungee tramp. This year they ran straight to the bungee trap...that was what they wanted to do first and second and third and fourth...we never had a line for anything! It was so much fun to watch the kids rock climb, flip on the bungee tramps and climb the tower of terror over and over and over...all day long while Whitney and I chatted. Wyatt wasn't into the climbing or jumping, he was content to hook the many carabeeners he carries with him everyday to the ropes around the activities and just hang there...
Ashlyn is a lot like me...always up for a little competition. She begged me to race her to the top of the tower and so with some prodding from the sidelines I gave in. It was so much fun! I think the kids climbed that tower fifty times that day...they all slept great that night and the next day we all had sore stomach muscles. Too funny.
Whitney was a good sport to indulge me in a little healthy competition as we raced to the top on the tower of terror...with everyone watching. I lost!! I came in a close second, but she booked it to the top of that thing...I couldn't believe it! I also challenged her to another competition on this bungee thing that the girls are on in this picture below...I lost again! What?? Good Job, sis! We had a great day.
I think we got one of the first batches of cotton candy that morning...way too much dye and it made everything blue...but the boys couldn't have been happier! I quickly exchanged it for the less permanent purple cotton candy!
We took a break for lunch, but after adding up what it would cost, we thought twice about it...the pizza at the Festival was 3 bucks a slice. The kids were starving, but I didn't want to pay that much...so I worked my magic, as Garrett calls it. I feel it never hurts to ask for a better price on anything and it always works. I asked if we could just buy a whole pizza for ten bucks (that's a savings of $14)...the lady gladly gave it to us for that price. After the Festival we had to stop by Cabelas (for Wyatt) to check out the fish and of course the knives. Whitney couldn't believe how much Wyatt loves knives. He wanted every knife in that place, but more importantly, he wanted to touch every knife behind the glass. At one point, he turned me, with a machete in hand and said "Mom, I need this one, pleeeease." Whitney and I looked and each other and we couldn't stop laughing! He is too funny! Sometime between the festival and Cabelas, my kids got it in their heads that they were sleeping over at aunt Whitney's and in her little mysterious ways she was also begging for me to let them sleep over...she is such a great sister and fun aunt!
After some negotiating and seeing Tanner's huge crocodile tears when I said it wasn't going to work out, I gave in. My heart just broke at seeing Tanner so sad...it's funny to me that I was just fine with my own kids getting teary-eyed, but when I saw Tanner's tears I couldn't handle that. The kids had a great time playing kick-the-can, staying up way too late and making the coolest Capri-Sun wallets...they always make the coolest crafts with aunt Whitney. They are pretty lucky!
