Tuesday: The best day ever for the lovies

We went on a walk with Cheryl this morning.  Last night Giraffe's bad part was that he didn't get to go outside, so Isaac said he could come on this morning's walk.  Grey Bear is always up for leaving the house and Snowfoot jumped in on the action too.

Really, the only reason I brought the backpack was for the lovies.

We also saw 35 turtles!  They were all lined up on a few logs, and I don't think I've ever seen that many before.

This afternoon Joshua said that he trapped Tornado, but I think Tornado actually trapped Joshua.

vacation Wednesday: fun, and leaving

The day once again started with FlowRider lessons as Isaac really wanted to do them again and was willing to pay for his portion.  He didn't have to twist Ben's arm too hard and Joshua joined too.  The teachers weren't as good, but they still had some good rides.  Joshua had a fun time, but a few extra pounds would have helped him out.

The park opened and we all did a few last rides.  We probably spent 1-1.5 hours finishing up.  We weren't in a hurry, but we didn't want to drag our feet too much either.

After changing, we went back to Tom Foolery's.  The rock climbing line wasn't too long, so I did that with Isaac.  Oh boy!  I could tell I didn't have the right type of shoes!  We raced to the top the first time and pretty much tied, but he was on a harder route.  I did my route one more time and then I was good.  It was fun but not as much fun as I had been expecting.  We did a few other games, finished up the money on the arcade card, and went to the store.  Overall, we ended up with a lot more tickets than I had been expecting.  Ben carefully chose a luck game on Tuesday and some of the games gave us quite a few because they were skill based instead of luck based.  We walked around a bit, but ended up with a pyramid rubrix cube and a stuffed cat in a coffee cup.  Honestly, Ben and I weren't thrilled with the cat but Joshua had his heart set on it and it was the right number of tickets.  (Spoiler: Catcachinno has become a beloved member of the family.  Every night he tells me that his bad part was not being able to drink some drink.  His good part varies a bit, but defaults to a drink that he did get to drink.)

And then we started home.  We had a small (10min?) detour when my phone decided that we wanted to take the ferry, but Ben caught it quickly.  Also around this time Ben noticed one of his toes starting to turn black and blue.  On the Flow Rider, at some unknown point, he stubbed his toe hard.  By the time we left the water park he couldn't wiggle his toes.  On the way home we decided to call the phone nurse, who of course told us to go to the ER.  (I'm not sure why we call the phone nurse anymore.  They always tell me to come in.  Also, we were going to get into town about 30 minutes after all the urgent care places closed.)  Long story short, I dropped him off at the Holland ER on the way into town.  They confirmed the break but were otherwise rather unhelpful.  Ben went to a specialist the next day who mostly said just walk on your heel for a while.  Ben doesn't have any boots or tape or anything like that, he just needs to walk carefully.

Even with the toe, it was an excellent vacation and we all really enjoyed it.

Monday: scooters

Since the kids didn't get to use their scooters on Friday, we tried again today.  We picked up Aunt C and headed to the Holland Energy Park.  They have a 3/4 mi paved loop.  Once again, it was a beautiful day.

Between the three of them, they were having a rough time letting me get a good picture.  However, this picture also feels rather accurate.

I found a snake!  I thought it was a stick and was stepping over it, only to see it move.  I jumped a little bit...not because it was a snake, but because it was a stick that moved!

Sunday: trimming

I trimmed a quilt tonight.  It isn't my favorite activity, but usually doesn't take too long.  However, when cats realize what I'm doing it doesn't go so well.  They like to pounce as the cutting mat when it moves.  Or they like to mess up the quilt when I use the laser level.  

Ben took Tornado down to the office to keep him out of my hair.

Saturday: rock climbing

There was another rock climbing competition today, this time in Holland.  Like last time, he flashed 8/9 routes.  The hardest part of those eight was one was in a crowded corner and he had a hard time getting to the wall.  In the future I think we need to remember that the crowd thins out a bit and to maybe come back to some of those.  Anyway, some routes were easy and some were harder.

The last one that he tried was the hardest...I think he knew that going into it.  It's the red one shown above: in the cave with some hard foot holds and a tiny jump at the end.  He was really close even after his first try, but it took five tries to actually get it.  (The video is better with sound.)

It was a relief to get that one.  Then he knew he could just play around a little.  He did a few of the intermediate ones, but some of the areas were still really busy.  So he started playing around on an advanced course.  Only one other person was working in the area and so they could easily take turns.  He got zone (a lesser point value than top, but still worth points), and he was really excited about that.

I'll also be honest, I saw the coolest move I've ever seen today...and we watched the Olympic Bouldering quite a bit this week.  Someone did a bat hang (only hanging on by their feet) to get a top hold and it was so cool.

We all decided to go to the award ceremony.  Isaac decided that he should show some support even if he didn't place.  I hadn't received a text to let us know to come by the time we were pulling into the parking lot, so I thought there must have been some other people that knocked it out of the park!  It was a little surprising, but it did take him several tries for the last one.  Anyway, I'm sitting in the back, minding my own business because we didn't actually need to be there.  Names are getting called and, as expected, Isaac wasn't one of them.  Then I hear a "First place - Isaac Hilldore."  What what??!?!  It was a good thing we came. :D  Ben and I were not ready with our phones, so the pictures aren't the best.

Joshua took the time afterwards to climb a few of the routes too.  We had offered him the option to actually enter the competition, and he went back and forth on it for a while.  In the end he decided not to, which I think he regretted a little bit.  It's ok.  There are more years if he's interested again.

This whole thing is part of a three gym series, with the finals being in Traverse City.  We weren't planning on going, as we didn't really expect Isaac to do this well.  I think we've convinced him to go, as long as we do something else while we're up there.

Friday: hike

This morning we went for a hike with Aunt C.  It was a lovely morning for it.  The kids brought us to the big hill and then ran down it several times.  They climbed some trees.

vacation Tuesday: busy and not busy

The morning started out with some private lessons at the FlowRider.  There were only four people and some really good instructors, so it was worth it and everyone was having fun.  However, then Isaac's swimsuit got caught in the thing.  While he was in the spray and able to breathe, the top lifeguard had to go and pick him up.  Isaac shook it off and continued.  The next time it was Isaac's turn the same thing happened!  This time the lifeguard wasn't able to pick him up and they had to e-stop the FlowRider.  His swimsuit had gotten more caught, to the point of a small bruise later on in the day, and they had to wait for it to be fixed.  No one was quite in the mood after that and so they canceled the rest of the lesson.

The good instructors continued on the FlowRider once the park opened, so Ben and Isaac continued waiting in line and trying standing up.  Isaac had a really good stand-up ride, about 15-20 seconds.  Joshua and I went around on some of the other rides, but it was really busy in the park.  It was a bit unexpected because it was a Tuesday.  Ben said he felt a little bad standing in the long line for the FlowRider, but honestly, it was about the same wait time as several of the other rides.  Joshua and I would see Ben ride, go to our ride, ride it, come back (possibly via the Lazy River), and see Ben ride again.  It was a bit odd how well it worked out.

We had lunch with Zach and Jenny.  The kids interacted really well over Minecraft, even though there was a large age gap.  

We went to Tom Foolery's after lunch.  Again, it was a bit busy but we did the high ropes course.  I wanted to do the rock wall but decided I didn't want to wait in line.  We all did a piano arcade game and I got a high (daily) score!  It was pretty exciting for me.  We also did the button pushing game together as a family - we were all on the same color and got another high score! 

Joshua and I finished up our scavenger hunt.  It took us several trips to finally find the last item as we kept running out of time.  It was in the farthest away building's lobby...we were originally going to be there but then they changed our room to be much closer.  Thank goodness...it was probably about a ten minute walk to the water park from that area.

At this point I needed a break so we went to the room for rest time.  We had a special treat.  I slept a bit, as did Joshua.  We decided to go to the outdoor waterpark and see if the big ride didn't have too long of a line - maybe we would ride it once or twice.

It ended up being the best part of the vacation for me!  The weather was warm, but there were clouds.  The water was much warmer than Sunday.  It was about dinner time, so there were few people around.  We rode the big one twice and had a great time on it.  We moved over to the other water slide area and did some of the double tubes a few times.  Then I said I was going to go on the body slide and the boys did the single tube funnel.  I probably did the body slide seven times while they were doing the tubes.  I would steadily walk up the stairs, there would be no one at the top and so I'd go right down!  By the third-ish time of this I was a bit winded as I was motioned down, but I went anyway!  After a bit we did a round of the mat slide and then suddenly the park was closing.  It was a lovely hour and a half, and I think we figured out that I did about fourteen rides.  (The boys probably did about ten...tubes are slower to deal with and they all waited for each other on the top and bottom.)

We headed back to Tom Foolery's after a dinner of leftovers in the room.  There was a 3D shooting game that I somehow got first place in!  I usually do very poorly on those things.  We did a few arcade games too, but then called it a night.