Tuesday, September 27, 2016

The Last Weekend of September

What a great weekend we had! We had one very summer-like day and one very fall like day....and we took full advantage of both days. Friday night we had planned on going to the boy's school for Family Movie Night, however upon arriving home from school, the boys informed me they wanted to have our own family movie night at home instead of up at school with their friends.

My heart swelled a little. I choose to ignore the fact it was because none of their good friends were going to movie night at school.


Popcorn and treats (and beer for Hubs and myself). We watched Free Willy. This was the minis first time seeing this movie. My favorite part was at the end of the movie when Elizabeth put her hands on her face and said quietly "he did it! Willy did it! He's free!" 


Whispering secrets to dad.


Saturday morning we stuck around home. In the afternoon, we enjoyed our last day at Adventureland for the year. The boys conquered The Dragon (otherwise known as "the upside down roller coaster") by themselves, we rode all of their favorite rides, and we topped the night off with our last trip to Snookie's for the year. Big night for all.


The Tea Cups and Lady Bugs are Elizabeth favorites, while the boys prefer the Balloons, The Outlaw, and The Dragon.



Another of Elizabeth's favorite: "the little flying dragons." She'll only ride it with Max. I have no idea what these two were talking about, but I loved watching Elizabeth's reactions to whatever Max was saying.



Elizabeth went on the Chuck Wagons while the boys rode their favorite coaster: The Outlaw. Then the real fun came. For Max's eighth birthday, we requested a day at Adventureland with dad so he could ride all of the big rides. On his birthday, he rode The Dragon and The Monster for the first time. Harrison has been dying to ride The Dragon all summer long...and we've made him wait for this upside down coaster. During our last visit for the year on Saturday, I gave Harrison the go-ahead to ride it by himself with Max (his request). He LOVED it and went on it twice....only because he was extremely disappointed that he wasn't big enough to ride The Monster yet. Harrison's new goal for the winter is "to grow big and strong so I can ride The Monster next summer. I'll eat lots of carrots and green beans and salads. Lots of salads...and some hamburgers too."



One of those moments as a parent where I probably shouldn't have laughed but did. Elizabeth fought to ride the pink motorcycles, Harrison happily hopped on with her, and Max sat in the back and cried because all of the front seats on all of the vehicles were taken. "I'm too big to be doing this," he complained as he poked at Harrison's back throughout the ride. The best part of this is that I asked him to start with if he even wanted to ride it and he said yes. Ugh, kids!


I don't think this purse was meant to go to an amusement park. Oops!


See ya in the spring Snookie's!


Sunday morning we woke up early for donuts and to see the Luminarium "Arboria" at Cowles Commons. This was walk thru art display was visiting for the weekend only from the UK and it was a must see for me. The only downside? Advanced tickets were sold out so we had to wait in line...for 2 1/2 hours! The kids were really good waiting and got to play (they even made some new friends).




Nothing kills time like twirling and singing.


They controlled how many people were inside at once, but there was no time restrictions once inside. We stayed for just over a half hour. While the kids did great waiting in line, they were terrible once inside. Go figure. The inside was awesome though!













Max shoving his sister out of the way so he can have a picture by himself. She wasn't happy about it.





Hubs set the camera down in the middle of the floor on timer to get good pictures of the cool rooms. We didn't quite get out of the way quick enough.









After the Luminarium the minis finally got to play in the fountains, despite the cool and windy weather. Whenever we have been to Cowles Commons this summer, the fountains were never on!



We quickly made our way from downtown to Colby Park for a friend's birthday party. The minis had a  blast playing at the park and eating cupcakes all afternoon.



The bossy girl telling dad how to play: "No! You do as I say!" I think she's heard that a few times.



From the park we ate an early dinner at Gilroy's. The minis got playing cards in their goodie bags from the party and were plenty entertained throughout our meal.



If looks could kills. This girl was on top of things all day. "Harrison can you please stop doing that? It's bugging me. It's really hurting my ears. Stop it Harrison!" He was drinking his water.

We've got some busy weekends coming up. Next weekend we'll be doing a fall colors drive (we haven't decided where yet because our intended destination is currently flooded from heavy rains last week)!