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Summer finally arrives…for now

Posted on July 18, 2009 9:49 pm by TheAngelForever

This summer has been a wild ride. It has rained almost every day. The sun barely has time to come out before another storm is passing by the area. Seriously, it has not felt like summer some days. Not only do you need a jacket to walk outside in the morning, but by late day temperatures are hardly into the 70’s. Sure, our AC units are not cranking away as much as we may need them and the humidity has not been up to the usual pea soup. Still, it would be nice to be able to go outside more and let the boys have fun during this so called summer.

Today the sun actually came out and it was warm enough to take out the kiddie pool for the boys to play in. NHL had gone in it the other day while JSL was napping. Today, we made a point to try to keep the little guy awake to go in the pool for some fun in the sun. When we got home from some errands, JL got the pool ready. Meanwhile, I took the boys into the house to get them in their bathing suits and sun lotion.

The water was quite cool from the hose. My toes decided they were not going in, so I was the designated photographer of the fun. At first, the boys just had fun playing with the water and watching it.

Then the little guy decided to try to splash his big brother. Not a really smart thing to do considering NHL had the much larger bucket, but what can you do? Clearly, JSL will learn since he is only two.

Of course, another thing the little guy needs to learn is NOT to drink pool water. ICK! Who knows what was in that sucker in reality. Oh, and the more we told him not to. . . it became a game.

Soon, JSL learned how to maximize his water spray to make more fun water displays.

The really big kid had fun playing with the boys in the pool. Of course, he decided to rain on JSL’s parade.

Soon, both of the boys were ganging up on JL and getting him soaked. NHL had the easiest job of this thanks to the big buckets of cold water!

After a few too many buckets from NHL, JL decided to get NHL back. I don’t think he was completely expecting this.

A special thanks to Mimi for the fun new pool toy that the boys enjoyed.

All three of my boys had a fun time soaking in the sun rays for several hours in our front yard. With any luck, this will not be yet another tease from Mother Nature.

Categories:
fun jl jsl laughs my boys nhl photos play time summer weather weekend

Walking with Dinosaurs

Posted on July 17, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

As the Mommy of two little boys, I am quite familiar with dinosaurs. I’ll admit it, even as a little girl I was fascinated with these amazing creatures that roamed our planet. I still remember my clay model dinosaur that I had to made for a report in second grade.

NHL has been fascinated with dinosaurs since he was around two years old. For quite a while, we watched a lot of the cartoon Harry and the Bucket Full of Dinosaurs. We have read a ton of dinosaur books, done a dinosaur birthday theme where I made a volcano cake for the dinosaurs to parade around.

Recently, the Walking with Dinosaurs live show came to our area. We toyed with whether or not to take the boys to the show. Eventually, tickets came our way and the four of us went together. If you ever have the chance to go please do. It is worth the money to see this arena spectacular. Yes, the dinosaurs were loud, but the kids were too fixated on the gigantic creatures towering over the audience below. The information in the show is amazing. Our son loves the fact that dinosaurs are related to birds. As an adult, I loved the mix of the history, dinosaur facts and humor that was included in the show.

Before we saw the show, we happened to catch a making of Walking with Dinosaurs on PBS. We saw the long process that created these phenomenal life-like dinosaurs. Every detail was put into them and it showed. The night before the show I Tweeted to see if anyone knew about taking photographs during the show. The next morning I had a Tweet from DinoTalesByKari with the answer. Kari just happens to be a Voodoo Puppeteer on the Walking with Dinosaurs North American Tour (who also blogs from the road). She told me that photography is permitted so long as no flash was used. You have to love Twitter and Kari too!

I was a good girl. Before the show I played with our camera to get the setting the best I could. The arena was quite dark, but I still managed to get a few good shots. Here are some from the afternoon we went:

The larger versions of the photos can be seen here: 1. P1180458, 2. P1180473, 3. P1180482, 4. P1180511, 5. P1180547, 6. P1180561, 7. P1180565, 8. P1180598, 9. P1180588, 10. P1180624, 11. P1180627, 12. P1180646

Inspired by the dinosaurs, my question for this week is:

What is your favorite dinosaur and why?

For the record, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Stegosaurus. Not sure why, but I was always intrigued by the armor and beauty of this dinosaur that I never did a report on in second grade.

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #57

Categories:
Aloha Friday fun jsl looking back nhl photos show

Riding in their Big Red Cars

Posted on July 15, 2009 7:46 am by TheAngelForever

Categories:
fun jl jsl my boys nhl Six Flags Wordless Wednesday

Character photo crusade at Six Flags

Posted on July 13, 2009 10:00 pm by TheAngelForever

Last year when we went to Six Flags NHL wanted nothing to do with the characters walking around the park. He would shut down and refuse to move if they were close. Eventually we proved to him that if he did not go to them, they were not going to approach him. When we booked our trip to Disney World in May we were a little nervous. We figured by the end of the trip NHL would either need therapy or would finally get over his fear of the big costumes.

Over the week at Disney World we slowly moved our way up to the characters. Things did not go well at our initial dinner the night we arrived. The screams at Chef Mickey coming from our table were quite loud from both of the boys. Soon after we managed to get the boys with Pocohontas and do a family photo with Lilo and Stitch. JL went into some photos (like Buzz Lightyear) with both JSL and NHL to continue the progress. By the end of the week NHL was running to Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto and Goofy!

We were curious to see how NHL would do when we went back to Six Flags on Sunday. Would he gravitate to the Looney Tune characters and Wiggles favorites? He talked about seeing Henry, Dorothy, and Wags all the way up.

When we walked into the park several of the characters were waiting to meet and greet people. Daffy Duck was first. NHL was not too sure about this. As you will see JL jumped into the shot, after handing a screaming terrified JSL back to me.

Next up was Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo. JL casually moved back of of the shot and NHL was fine with it.

When we went to Wiggles World he saw Captain Feathersword and Dorothy come out and RAN to them. Victory was ours!

After the Wiggles show he finished off getting some additional photos with the rest of the Wiggles gang including the Wiggly Dancer.

Later on we caught up with Sylvester, the Tazmanian Devil and Pepe Le Pew.

Then right when we were leaving we saw the Six Flags guy from the wacky commercials. Even JSL thought he was kind of funny and did not scream.

We will see if JSL will warm up to the characters. We figure seeing his big brother happy this year should help. Season passes and more opportunities should also keep things going in the right direction, but only time will tell.

Categories:
Disney fun jl jsl looking back my boys nhl photos summer weekend

Follow the M&M Road

Posted on July 12, 2009 11:04 pm by TheAngelForever

Today was supposed to be a gorgeous day. Thanks to a little pressure from Nana, we decided to take the boys to Six Flags. In the fall, we upgraded our tickets to season passes for 2009. Prior to this, we had not gone this summer season. We arrived by Six Flags at about noon and went to a pizza place for a quick much less expensive lunch. Then we went back to the park. Thanks to our parking pass we did not have to pay almost $10 for a space. We bought nothing at the park. I had packed some snacks in our bag and lugged our Nalgene water bottles to refill.

We had a very nice time at the park. The boys loved Wiggles World, Looney Tunes kid area, and NHL had fun getting his photos taken with all of the characters. JL and NHL loved getting soaked on the Raging River and we all had a blast on the Bobsled ride. Lots more photos to come soon. Tonight I will leave you with some photos of the M&M Road that we found. As we were going over the bridge I could not help myself and think: "Follow the M&M Road. Follow the M&M Road. Follow, follow, follow, follow…follow the M&M Road!"