Lagoon

In honor of my nephew Liam's birthday, we spent the afternoon at Lagoon with my brother and his boys. (Here they are showing off their excitement. The birthday boy is at bottom right.)

Now, I'm a die-hard Disneyland fan, so spending that much moola at a non-Disney place was a little tricky for me. But the kids LOVED it. No...I mean they really, really, really, LOVED it! One of the first things we did, and something we've skipped on our previous trips to the park, was to ride the train. After this trip on the rails I'm fairly certain the girls will never let us skip it again.

To my profound astonishment, the girls both rode and actually ENJOYED a couple roller coasters as well as the Jumping Dragon (which basically spins around and around until you vomit...which no one did...because I didn't go on it).

Curtis went on an airplane ride with Liam. He was a little nervous at first (I think that's what his face is attempting to communicate here) but, since the ride didn't go too high or too fast, he handled it with grace.

The best part of the day was when Curtis begged me to take him on the Tidal Wave. You know, that crazy ship that rocks back and forth and makes your stomach drop? Yeah, that one.

We sat down next to a couple teenage boys about halfway to the back of the ride. Curtis yelled to "get going" as he excitedly gripped the bar in front of him. Slowly we rocked backwards for the first big swing, and he was fine...until we came back down. There's no way I can sufficiently describe the fear that suddenly gripped that 3 year-old body. He became a twitching, mess of a person. His limbs shot out in all directions. He would momentarily relax on the backward swing only to flail once again as we returned earth-ward. He was apparently too paralyzed to scream or cry out loud, but continuously muttered, "...make it stop, make it stop, make it stop..." much to the delight of all those surrounding us. I have to admit that I couldn't stop laughing. It was quite likely the funniest thing I've seen all year.

Despite being kicked in the side (multiple times) the nice boy next to Curtis continued to reassure him until we finally came back in for the landing. And man, was that kid grateful to plant those little feet back on the ground.

We had a fun-filled day and wore the kids out until they were bone-tired and ready to fall asleep on the ground. Basically it was a success!

Before and After

We've been in our house for 9 years. We've finished, painted, and even re-painted most of the rooms over the years. For the past 9 years, however, we've allowed our unfinished laundry/bathroom to exist as a storage dump for the plethora of our (okay, my) stuff. It was ugly.

No...really ugly.

The reason for the lengthy disregard of it's potential as a loo? Well...our builder "accidentally" put our furnace, ducting, etc., etc., in the WRONG PLACE. When we contacted the builder (several years ago) they responded with a less-than-enthusiastic "oops" and left us on our own. The prospect of literally digging up ALL of the plumbing and re-configuring the layout was overly-daunting. And so it sat.

Until. (Insert lively, big-band-type music...)

And suddenly we have a whole new room. With a shower! Joy. Curtis was so excited about it that he was happily the first to use the new commode. (And then promptly continued to ignore all of my potty-training efforts.)

During the process of finishing the room we encountered only one small dilemma. Curtis + wet cement = catastrophe.

Ummm...

Has anyone else noticed that I'm super-behind on my blog?

Cause I have.

What a pain in the posterior.

Post Edit: And that book over there on the right-hand side of the page? Yup, I finished it... and two others since then. Wow, I'm a slacker.