Family day at Seabreeze

Today, we spent the day at Seabreeze! The amusement park here in Rochester, with plenty of water rides, and kid activities. It was kind of a "family-we-haven't-done-anything-all-summer", mixed with "it's-almost-Karter's-birthday-and-we-don't-need-anymore-toys" deal. Seriously, we don't need anymore toys in this house, it's about to explode!

Jon and Kourtney went with us, and we had a blast! The boys are both big enough to do many of the rides, and actually enjoy the water slides. At Legoland in Florida, Karter was too short for a lot of the rides. He apparently grew and inch or two in the last 2 months, as he is now 36 inches (okay, half an inch might be the spiky hair) and meets the minimum limits for the rides. He was only bummed about missing two-the big bumper cars (which was happily replaced by the kiddie thunderbird track) and the kid's rollercoaster.



Kian went on the big swings, and Karter was happy to go on the kid's swings. They both enjoyed airplane rides, water slides, wave pool, train rides, and much more. It was so much fun now that Kian was big enough for almost all the adult rides too. He was so thrilled. Seeing their happy, grinning faces, was awesome. Pure joy, as they got on and off the rides, shooting water guns, enjoying junk food, courtesy of Aunt NeeNee, and all that amusement park stuff. You could just see the memories being made and banked.


Having the 2 other adults with us was great as well. Kevin and Jon could do the crazier rides if they wanted-or Kourt and Jon. There was always a person to go with a child who needed an adult rider, or take the smaller one to the kiddie rides. Or extra hands and eyes for bathrooms and running through the park. And, we picked a great day. A mid-week, cooler, but dry, day meant less people, cheaper tickets and coupons (thanks NeeNee for birthday contributions to the tickets!) and much shorter lines, without sweating all day long.



It ended with the boys coming home, eating a salad and going to bed. Perfect! It was a great success. Kian already asked that next year, this be his birthday gift as well.

Oh-and Kourtney got me to go on the Jack Rabbit....once. No, I didn't open my eyes.

30 for 30?

Had the most awesome idea today...talk about making history! I'll be turning 30 in May. Unlike the rest of the world I"m not really "freaking out" that I'm turning 30. I don't feel any older, and most days I still feel like I look like I'm too young instead of old enough (like I still look like a college kid instead of a mom with 2 of her own kids...could be the sweats and glasses somedays? no?) Anyways...it's more like awe that I am really 3 decades old. I mean, I feel the same as I did at 18. My body, except for the obvious baby-producing areas, remains much in the same as it was at that age, some areas even better, some not so much...but nothing broken, no gray hairs, (probably some wrinkles, but i got complemented on my skin's elasticity a few weeks ago haha) no aches in my back--except while pregnant, etc.

Well, anyway, the point is...I have been reading all my friends' posts about turning the big 3-0 and some are totally hating it, some are embracing it, some don't care. But, along with this whole making history theme I've got going here, I want to make this birthday make history. No, I don't mean by the biggest bash and getting drunker than Charlie Sheen and not remembering my name in the morning and losing lots of cash in slots. I dislike being the center of attention (showers and birthdays make me uncomfortable, too much focus on me and I feel greedy) so I don't want ME to be celebrated. But, in honor of me being 3 decades old soon, I thought well, GIVE! Give back, give it away. Instead of asking for the same boring household items I always ask for (cookie sheets, towels, gift card for new shirts...yawn) why not ask people, no tell them, to not give me a gift. Instead, give the world a gift!

I want to have donations made in my name or just given to some charities and feel like something worthwhile is being done, lives are being changed. I appreciate gifts, I do, but adult gifts are boring. It's really hard thinking of things to ask for anymore. I hate asking anyways, I usually wait until people have bugged me a billion times. ;) So, I started looking into some charities/organizations...one I'm really interested in is Compassion International. They have several programs besides just the sponsor a child section, which is really cool too and something the boys could become involved in, communicating back and forth.

Then, a bigger, better idea hit me! What if I could line up 30 charities for my 30th birthday? Yes 30. If I post my ideas and my developments on facebook and my blog, perhaps I could get others to join in with me. And I don't necessarily mean huge gifts, but heck, ten bucks per charity is something! So, perhaps it's a bit out there, but I'm going to do some research and I have about 6 in mind already and I'll keep y'all updated... thinking BIG here. Enough about ME. History is in the making...