It doesn't really bother me that much when my kids get older. I mean, when people say 'whoa, how did that happen?' I think, you know, I've been here for 17 years, that seems about accurate.
But for some reason, Calib hitting 17 made me twinge just a little bit. Now, stay with me here, because you are all about to roll your eyes, but he is one year away from being done with being a kid, or at least by our human made standard measurement of when adulthood begins, and so I've really thought 'am I doing enough? Have I done enough?' It's silly really, because I am fully aware that I am a good mom. Screw all those 'I do my best.' I'm a freakin' rock star at being a mom. But, it's still just something I've thought about lately.
And Calib started school late, he'll be a junior this year, so even when he hits 18, he'll still have a year of high school left. So, I'm being a bit ridiculous. I didn't let on though, so unless he someday reads this blog, he'll have no idea (hi future Calib!)
Anyway, here we are at 17. It's also a little weird, because I've spent Calib's entire life thinking about the fact that when my dad was 36, I was born. And when Calib turns 18, I'll be 36.
And now, those are our next birthdays up.
For his birthday he wanted to go bowling, to lunch, to a movie, and then back home for dinner (homewrecker burrito bowls), and games. That meant we had to get up before noon, and it didn't go over well with the other teenager in the house.
First up was bowling. We still have free games on the boys cards, and they always get a free $20 on their birthdays loaded on to the Pinchasers card as well, so even Asa and I are free.
Our scores are a bit misleading, as Asa, Hayden and I used bumpers- but Hayden was the winner, which he was pretty excited about.
After bowling we went up to Citrus Park to collect Calib's free birthday burger at Red Robin. I tried to get a nice picture of Calib and Hayden- this is what I got on my third try. /sigh
We had about an hour to kill before the movie though (because we had to have recliner seats, not regular seats like some peasants), so we wandered the mall, or really just Dick's Sporting Goods. They were probably glad when we, along with our shenanigans were gone.
Then there was the stop at the massage chairs. (Peyton and I opted out of those).
And then we were off to the movies to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
When we got home, it was time for presents. Nothing too big this year, just a bunch of little stuff Calib asked for- a basketball hoop for his room, so new clothes, a couple of gift cards, and a wallet and phone case to keep his phone dry at the beach and various water events in Hawaii.
On Wednesday, Asa and I had gone to pick up Calib's birthday cake request, Gigi's Cupcakes. It's not a bad birthday cake pick because everyone gets to pick the one they would like. Calib always gets two, so he has some 'leftover' next day.
We got a whole slew of people to Facetime for Calib's birthday. Usually he just gets grandma and gigi, but Aunt Bonnie and Aunt Judie have been visiting grandma as well, so everyone sang happy birthday to him.
We finished up our day with Munchin, and some video games. All in all, it was a very nice birthday, and we're on to the next one- Peyton will be 15 in just under a month.
But the day after Calib's birthday, we celebrated our friend, Tracy's birthday. So there was more cake to be had. Last time Tracy was here we ordered pizza, and talked about how it's difficult to squeeze in a social call for dinner because then we lose a day to do a country- and she said she'd love to be here for a country dinner. So in honor of her birthday, we had her pick a country. She went with South Korea, so when dinner was over, she also got to vote on postcards and color in South Korea in the color of her choosing (she went with yellow, a good pick!)
Speaking of countries, I'm currently two blogs behind on those (three if you count today), but I'll get to them. We voted on collections again, so we're now in the 90s. If all goes according to plan this week, we'll be hitting our halfway point on Saturday!
I haven't written a 'what we've been up to' blog since our Pandora Preview, so I'll fill you in there- the 22nd thru 26th of May was the last week of school for the public school kids around here, so we really tried our best so squeeze in some of our favorite places before they got super crowded.
We're also blacked out of our Disney passes all summer (I think until mid-August now), so we decided to do our last Disney day the last day the crowd calendar would see a five or below for months. We got up and had lunch at home before heading out to Typhoon Lagoon.
Apparently, I didn't take any pictures there- but we did ride the new family waterslide 'Miss Adventure Falls'. This one is seriously fun! We loved it. It's one of those where three to four people sit in one round raft (we did adults in one, kids in a second one). But what makes this kind of cool is instead of stairs, you board your raft down below at ground level and then you ride the conveyer belt up to the top. Since you never really have to wait for a raft to get to you, they board pretty continuously, and the line never gets all that long. There's no big drops, but a few waterfalls will get you pretty wet. It's totally fun though, we rode it three times.
We did hit one of the first summer afternoon rains though, and slides and attractions were closed for about half an hour. It never poured, and we never actually heard any thunder or saw lightning, and things opened back up pretty quickly- although the park had a chance to clear out, so then it was like we had the place to ourselves. I waited in the big Crush n Gusher pool while the boys went on it three times in a row (and I was the only one in the pool- it was kind of weird!)
After Typhoon Lagoon we headed over to Disney Springs for dinner. We got two pizzas at Blaze, so along with our app (which we had a reward for a free drink) and our passholder discount, it was something like $18. Then we went over and got two different kinds of poutine, and finished up with some lemon curd cheesecake at the Patisserie. We were all full after that- and we came in at less than $40. Not bad for all five of us to have dinner at Disney.
After dinner we headed over to the Magic Kingdom. It's the first time we had been there where we parking in the regular old lot and had to do security before heading over to the Magic Kingdom. We also decided to catch the ferry instead of waiting for the monorail.
We had fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, so we decided to catch the train to the back. (Which somehow took 20 minutes- it would have been faster to walk!) The boys entertained themselves though. And we did make it to our Fastpasses, with a minute or two to spare.
The park was actually PACKED though. If that was five, I don't want to see any higher. Even our Fastpasses meant waiting in line for 20 minutes, something I've rarely seen on one pass let alone all three Fastpasses. It took Hayden and I longer to do the cars than it took Peyton, Calib and Asa on Space Mountain, too. Weird.
Of course you can always take the people mover, even with a line, there's like no wait- and you can hit something like 8 Pokestops just riding around on it.
We finished up with our Buzz Lightyear passes, and then had to make a judgement call. The whole reason we wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom was to see the new nigh time fireworks show (now that Wishes is gone- so sad!), but we weren't willing to try and get a good spot 2 hours ahead of time, when we first noticed people already waiting.
I knew the main attraction of the new show is the projection on the castle to go along with the fireworks and the soundtrack, but there was nowhere left in the park that we would get a good view of the castle, so we decided to bail and just catch the fireworks on the ferry and across the lake.
Over at the transportation and ticket center, they pump the music in, so we kind of got to watch the new show. The fireworks are cool and all, slightly different, but I missed Wishes. Maybe it will seem much more awesome when we actually catch it inside the park, so I'll reserve judgement. So far, I'm not terribly impressed.
Anyway, with just a few days before kids were out of school we also took one of our remaining days and spent the afternoon at Adventure Island.
Asa worked on Memorial Day for the overtime (you know, for Hawaii and all), but we did make time to go down to the lodge for the summer kick off party, and we nabbed a snack at the ice cream truck.
We also played True American: Memorial Day Edition. (I linked to our first one there in case you want to see what it is all about). This time I bought a couple different snacks and let everyone customize their own section of the tower.
I actually had planned on doing the Waterstraut Olympics on Memorial Day, since we won't be here on the 4th of July this year. But then we'd be missing our usual Memorial Day True American, so nobody much liked that idea. So I kind of threw this one together last minute. I didn't have anymore little plastic shot glasses, so I had to make do.
All in all, the boys had a good time- and this game gets easier and easier to put together. The boys still know a surprising amount about the presidents, even though it's been awhile since we've done the birthdays.
After Memorial Day, we had to find someway to beat the crowds and the summer heat, so we headed to Lakeland for a trip to 2infinity. We first visited here during last summer's Olympic Extravaganza, and it was just as much fun the second time around. (This time there was less camera time on my part, more jumping in foam pits, climbing across the tight rope and even making my way through the obstacle course section). Asa and I did go over to Jen and Kayla's that night, and between 2infinity and Jen's Margaritas, I felt old the next day. (We're super sad we are missing their wedding because of Hawaii, so even though we're all super busy we had to get in one more visit before all the festivities.)
With summer vacation, comes summer reading club at the library. They had the summer kick off party yesterday, so we took Hayden down to check it all out. This year's theme is 'build a better world' so it fits in perfectly with our project this year. We'll miss all kinds of events when we're on our something like 16 day trip, but he'll still be able to do somethings.
Oh, and funny story. They needed Asa to work a half hour later yesterday, because nobody was going to be there from 11:30 to midnight. He, of course, said no problem, but that meant he didn't have to work until 1:30. Apparently Calib missed the memo, because we were leaving the library minutes after 1 o'clock (Asa's usual scheduled time), when Calib called and asked us if we knew what time it was because Asa had to clock in. (Calib gets so mad when I talk about how responsible he is, and says that he's not- as if it is a bad thing- so I found this particularity funny.)
The big news of the week though, is what happened in our backyard yesterday morning before that trip to the library (and Costco)! We finally got our fence installed (we're still waiting on the gate, but the that should be taken care of tomorrow, and the rest of it is here.) It went up in a matter of two hours. We had a partial back fence from our neighbors, and one side covered because of another set of neighbors, so we didn't have a ton to fence it, but it was something I absolutely wanted done before we left the dogs to go to Hawaii. (Because, um, remember that time we lost Porkchop at Mammoth Caves?)
Anyway, nobody is more excited about this fence than Ellie. She is out there chasing lizards and digging in the dirt until her little heart is content. She was out there no less than half the day yesterday, but with breaks to come in and drink water and cool down.
Now, our backyard was kind of a jungle when we moved in. I'm not sure I took any true before pictures, but slowly we've been getting rid of all the terrible bushes, plants, and trees. They were not in good spots, they were super overgrown, and nearly none of it was anything I would pick for our yard. And that isn't even included these GIGANTIC bushes planted just over the property line by another neighbor. We had to trim those way down to get the fence as close up to them as we could- and then we tamed down the back jungle. The result is a giant pile of brush in the back yard. It comes and goes. It seems like everytime we get rid of it, we chop down more things and then it's back again.
But this is the biggest it's been, since we only had about a days notice that the rest of the stuff for the fence had to come out. The boys think this would be an excellent time to play Survivor. They have a fenced in back yard, and lots of things to build a shelter with!
Speaking of Survivor, we were all set to play it- but when the boys heard the fence was coming they said we should wait until that is done. They did help me out designing immunity idols and challenges.
Which is great, because I have a whole ton of things to plan in the next couple weeks. It's actually about to get a little crazy in here. We're trying to fit in the things we'll miss- so Peyton is going to have 'Peyton's Fake Birthday' this weekend, along with hopefully the all-nighter he likes to have. Then, like we discussed, we have to find a time for the Waterstraut Olympics. And I'm working on some fun things for our halfway point with the countries. Plus e're moving up Father's Day (or as we know it, Hobbit Day), because this year it falls the day after our Anniversary, which we're headed to Ruskin for- so that's not going to work for us. Between all of this we have various dental and orthodontist appointments- Calib needs to take his PERT exam, Asa needs to go to the eye doctor and Allison will be here to visit in a week and a half. (She's staying with our puppies while we're gone- but we didn't want her JUST to come for that, so we'll have time to visit ahead of our trip).
Plus, you know, as many countries as humanly possible as to not get behind while we're gone.
I leave you with one more funny story. Calib was cleaning his room, when he discovered Porkchop had been hiding Ellie's half eaten rawhides under Calib's bed. Porkchop was not happy he'd been made, but he was even less happy that his stash went away.
I've also got a cute Damascus picture and Mayble picture for you.
That's it from here.
Next Up: The Waterstraut All-Nighter, Peyton's Fake Birthday and another Trump inspired theme week for our countries!
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