Holiday World, Viking Assault, Swimming, Sleepovers.

We had quite the full 3 day weekend and I. Am. Tired!  Last week, I traveled on Wednesday and Thursday and while I was gone, Joel took the kids to the playground and gave them cookies for a treat.  He's such a good daddy!

We got up Friday morning and loaded up our stuff for a weekend away.  First stop - Holiday World!

The kiddos thought driving the Tin Lizzies was the best thing ever.  It's so, so fun watching them get a kick out of the same rides that I used to love when I was little.  

 

This is the first year that neither kid pitched any fits about any of the rides.  They wanted to ride everything!

And my honorary 3rd child got in on the carousel action as well.....Meanwhile, I focused on looking at the kids directly as much as possible so as to avoid getting motion sick.  Getting older is SUCH. A. B*TCH.

Train ride selfies.

Family selfie!  They look so grown up!!

Tyler was about 1/2 inch too short to ride the teacups (among other rides where you must be 36" to ride).  Lily enjoyed the teacups with her Daddy.  Thank goodness he can handle this round and round crap.  I'm out.  

Meanwhile, Tyler went to the playground.  It cracks me up how much the kids are attracted to the run of the mill playground equipment.  They get to play on playgrounds all the time so you'd think they would be itching to ride the rides over and over.  But nope.  They want some playground action too.

Last year, I begged and coaxed Lily on the roller coaster and she HATED it.  She cried when it was over and when they asked if she wanted to ride a second time, you could practically hear the "h*ll no" in her cry.  This year, she asked me if she could go on it.  We had to wait through about 3 cycles before it was our turn and each time she impatiently asked if it was her turn yet.  When we FINALLY got on (those are her caps, not mine, cause it was only about a 10 minute wait), she got a little nervous but she was smiling.  We rode through and she kind of whimpered a little toward the end - it's a little herky jerky - and said that it hurt her neck.  I asked her if she wanted to go again and she said, "Yes!"  Guess it didn't hurt that bad.

We caught up with Jenny, Jackson and Audrey and had some lunch.  Then headed to the water park.  When we got there, Joel took Lily and went off in search of a "big slide."  There were two slides where you just needed to be 36" and several more where you had to be 42".  Lily was about 1/2" shy of being tall enough for the 42" rides.  They had to wait a bit, but did finally go down a big slide.  Joel said Lily fussed a tiny bit when it was time to get on the ride, but that she did great once she got on.  Meanwhile, Tyler and I were hitting up the slides - he was so independent.  Running up there all by himself, picking which slide he wanted and scooting his little butt on down.  Joel and Lily came back and then we all hit up the slides for a while.

After a couple hours on the slides, the kids lips were quivering and Lily asked if we could go ride some "not water" rides.  We figured we had a tiny bit of time before Tyler was just going to fall asleep standing.

 

After that, it was time to go.  Tyler was DONE.  He could hardly keep his eyes open and was passed out asleep before we got out of the parking lot.  Lily fell suit about 10 minutes later - after getting her first taste of peanut butter fudge, which she LOVED.

Saturday morning, we headed up to the Evansville 4-H Fairgrounds for the Viking Assault - aka 5K obstacle course / mud run.  Brandon got Katie roped in and she got me, Joel and Jenny roped in.  It was a blast!  Well sort of.  I was SOOOOOO nervous before we actually took off.  I really didn't know what to expect and I didn't do any preparations for this.  

Except buy me some spandex.  And I looked d@mned fine in that spandex!

 

After the plethora of before photos, we stood nervously waiting for our turn.  It seemed like forever before we actually got going.  Brandon's family was there and did get some photos of us along the way.  Then at the end, Joel came back through the course and got a few pictures of us finishing up.  

Some of the obstacles included:  running up and down uneven grass, climbing over hay bales, carrying a heavy rock up and down a hill several times, shimmying across a 1 inch wide wooden ledge bolted to the side of a concrete wall, climbing a rope to ring a bell (skipped that one), climbing a cargo net ladder x2, running through muddy mud puddles x ~5, flipping a ginormous tire, lots and lots of running through the woods on uneven root & limb covered ground, weaving over and under strings strung between trees, tire runs, bunny hopping over some 2 foot high hurdles, American Ninja Warrior style monkey bars (skipped that), diving in a ice bath (which was muddy - eww), scaling 2 x 6' walls and 1 x 8' wall, a warped wall (skipped that too - Joel nailed it), and a final crawl in the mud under some barbed wire fencing.  

We had an awesome time - lots of laughing.  Lots of cheering each other on.  Lots of heavy breathing and down right gasping for air.  Lots of bruises and sore muscles.  Lots of memories.  

We did it!  

The rest of the weekend was slightly more laid back.  Thank goodness because after Holiday World and running in mud, I was pretty much cashed out.

The kids had a great time swimming at Grams house.  Tyler is absolutely fearless.  He was jumping off the diving board over and over and over.  Loved it.  Joel did finally get Lily to jump a couple times too before the weekend was over.

Tyler saw the other kids peeing on the tree and he had to get in on the action.  Is this not the most hilarious thing you've ever seen?

Because I have to travel again this week and then again in two more weeks, we thought this might be a good time for Grams to keep the kiddos for a week.  That would help Joel out and give him a break from single parenthood at least for one of these trips. 

I got a couple texts from Aunt Jenny tonight.... at one point this evening, Tyler had disappeared.  Apparently he was tired and put himself to bed (with his shoes on underneath that blanket). He started crying for mommy (shocker it was mommy and not daddy) and Lily said to him:  "Tyler, I am going to sleep right here if you need me."  What a good big sister!