Lagoon With the Fam

Back at the end of the summer, we went to Lagoon with the Morton's. The above picture is our theme for the day. It represents the countless times I talked Melanie into going on a ride with multiple little people so I never had to spin, turn, rotate, free fall, or go fast on anything at Lagoon. Yeah for me. Don't let her facial expression fool you. She loved it.

It's fair to say I'm not much of an amusement park person. I've NEVER really liked rides. I can tolerate some things, but as a kid I HATED everything about amusement parks. At least now, I've learned to enjoy sipping Diet Coke and eating popcorn and ice cream all day while waving at the kiddos on the kiddie rides. Trust me, I'll do anything to avoid RIDES. Yuck.

You know, I come by this hatred honestly. I was "strongly encouraged" to ride a tilt-a-whirl at Knotts Berry Farm as a kid. Yeah. Bad idea. I threw up and then passed out and some helpful bystander got the ice out of her sticky Coke to rub on my forehead. Is this a cure for fainting/vomiting I'm not aware of?!! Ugh. Fast forward 20 years. Dave talked me into WAY too many ridiculous rides at Six Flags in Wisconsin. I only remember the first half of the Batman ride. Then I remember Dave and the ride attendant nervously trying to bring me back to consciousness. Nice hon. Seriously, rides are NOT my thing. Problem is, Dave LOVES amusement parks, so we compromise. I'm a good sport (kind of) until said vomiting/fainting presents itself at which point Dave lets me off the hook. Fortunately for him, he had Austin, Jackson, Colby, and Landon to entertain him so I didn't have to. Kiddieland here I come. The kids (and Dave) had a great time and that is ONE thing I do like about it. Yeah Lagoon. Enjoy the pics.




One of these days, one or both of us will remember to remove our sunglasses BEFORE a picture is taken.







Grandma did her share of barf-mobile rides with the kids. She happens to love things that spin. I'm not sure how we're even related.

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Since we hadn't had a crazy busy enough summer, Paula and I decided to take a ROAD TRIP to Mesa in a WEEKEND back in August. Mesa is 11 HOURS AWAY, and we already know we are insane .... ASK ME IF I CARE?!! Paula and I were in a Young Women's presidency together years ago ... that's actually how we met. One of our young women from back then got married, and we thought a wedding reception in Mesa was a great excuse for a ROAD TRIP!!! WaHOoo!

Kyle (Paula's son) and Levi (his trusty sidekick) came along as chaperones ... or maybe we were the chaperones. I really couldn't tell ya. Knowing Bret and Dave, they probably bribed these fine young men to come along and keep an eye on us. NICE TRY!!

Let's just say ... we had a GREAT time listening to music, eating TONS of junk, drinking Diet Pepsi by the gallon, reading magazines, lounging around at the pool, shopping, laughing, eating out, watching movies, playing Rock Band, laughing at Kyle and Levi and their endless conversations about absolutely NOTHING (seriously felt like a Seinfeld episode), singing at the top of our lungs (sometimes complete with hand actions), and of course staying up talking til 3:00 a.m. WHAT?!! We stayed with Paula's aunt Kris and her husband, Larry, and got to hang out with them and their beautiful daughters. They were so much fun! Thanks again for letting us stay!

We had a TON of rain on our way down. We were actually stopped at one point because of flash flooding outside of Flagstaff. There was two feet of water rushing across the road, and they wouldn't let anyone through til it cleared. What the?!! I thought it was supposed to be HOT and DRY in Arizona. I've actually NEVER driven in that low of visibility in my life. Rain coming down so hard we couldn't see the car in front of us. It was CRAZY.

All of that is water. In some places it looked like a river on the side of the road, rapids and all. It was really crazy.
What do you do when you get bored on a super long car ride? Well, if you're Kyle, you start taking random pictures of people.
This is a pretty good theme photo for this trip ... note the 44 ounce Diet Pepsi.
Good use of the rear view mirror Kyle. Very creative. Also, someone should really clean that mirror.
Nice moody shot of Levi. Cheer up man ... we only have 10 more hours to drive!!!
And the second wind kicks in ...
Wow.
Looking good. Not bad for driving 12 hours after three hours of sleep. Ooops. Did we really stay up til 3:00 a.m., get up at 6:00 a.m. and drive 12 hours only to arrive home 20 minutes before both Paula and I had to be at a Young Women's training? Paula actually had to teach at the training ... I just sat in the back and laughed at her exhaustion/caffeine induced energetic talk. It was awesome.
Okay, so this is kind of a funny story. We stopped for gas, I put the pump in, turned it on, and we went inside to get a drink and some more sugar and off we went. So about two hours later, Paula's driving and she's like "WE HAVE NO GAS!!!" What?!! We just filled up?!! Apparently not. We didn't get ANY gas at the gas station. Good grief. I'm not sure who is supposed to be the smart one between the two of us, but we both blew it this time. The good news is, we came up on a gas station pretty quickly. It was old style with no pay at the pump, so we thought we better take a picture since these are practically extinct. I'm so glad we didn't have to flag down a trucker to give us a lift to the nearest town (seems like the start of a bad horror movie I know). It's possible we were just a little too tired or maybe three days of nothing but caffeine, sugar, french fries, and cheesecake was clouding our judgment.
Awww ... isn't that just DARLING?!! We may be old, but we so know how to PARTY better than these two. We wore them right out. They were sleeping during our "country music" phase on the drive home. They said we were torturing them and pretended to ignore us. They were actually great traveling companions. Very polite and courteous and pretty funny. Way to restore my faith in teenage boys. Where should we go next?!!