Deflate Gate - - Was Anything Else Happening This Week?

This is what Brady thinks of the story....fell asleep watching the Pats/Colts game Sunday night.

Okay, I admit it.  I spent WAY more time than I probably should have following this whole "Patriots let air out of the balls" story that broke on Monday morning.  And since it's Sabbath now (thank goodness) I'm not going to get into it all right now.  I will just say that I listened to inordinate amount of sports radio out of Boston on Tune In Radio on my phone...so much so that Calleigh came in this afternoon, caught me listening to it, and said "I really hate when you listen to that." This from a girl who has taken a much bigger interest in football the last few weeks.  I guess that sums it up!  Oh, and if I wasn't following this story, I was most likely on my phone playing Trivia Crack.  The name sums it up.  Shawn introduced me to the app about a week ago and I'm totally addicted.  At least it's trivia and not a mindless game.  That's what I tell myself when I'm playing it instead of cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and parenting.  Get the app (it's free!) and we can play each other!

Our week actually got started off with the Patriots though.  As many know, I only like to have fellow Patriots fans over for games when we get to the playoffs.  I have invited the McGuires over for games in the past but it finally worked out for them to come on Sunday for the Pats/Colts game.  It was really great to have them here...Norman, Kristin, and two of their four kids (others are at college), Shawn and Gavin.  Ron and Elaine also joined us.  The game was a complete blowout (NOT because of deflated balls) so it was considerably less stressful than the week before against the Ravens. We were actually able to have some nice conversation while watching.


Monday was Martin Luther King Day so Duncan had the day off work.  I took the girls to gymnastics while he stayed home with the boys.  Our big project of the day was cleaning out the garage (we never really finished it back some months ago when I had dropped that bottle of juice on my foot) which we successfully accomplished.  Man, it feels good at the end of the day when you finish a big job.  Duncan also hung up a bunch of remaining art work that needed to go up (yes, after 2+ years) and some shelving in the downstairs bathrooms.  It was a good day.  We also watched a short documentary on MLK and talked to the kids about racism, etc.  It's so interesting when you explain to them about Rosa Parks, etc and what happened to people because they were black.  The kids look at you like you have two heads when you try to explain it.  Calleigh says "But they're the same as us except they have darker skin." Yes, my love.  It's that simple.

Last week I had seen on Facebook that this amusement park called The Fun Spot was having a groundbreaking event on Tuesday.  Gatorland, another Orlando attraction, was going to be building a small attraction at The Fun Spot...joining forces so to speak.  The good news was that for this event, the park would be free for the day if you arrived between 10:00 - 10:20.  The park was open until midnight so a good deal for sure.  I didn't know the price to get in but knew it wasn't cheap.  Anywho, there is no way I could go to something like this alone because an adult would have to go on many of the rides with a kid Brady's size and possibly Aubree's.  Fortunately Jennifer, Vasti, and Dawn Brown and their respective children were up for joining us.  We chuckled at the fact that it was on a Tuesday because it would probably be just homeschoolers but we were still fearful it would be really packed. The good news it was only a 20 minute drive away so no big deal if it was too crowded.

Oh the fun we parents can have.  I didn't tell the kids where we were going but I told them I was taking them to "a fun spot." Hahahaha.  I really cracked myself up with that one.  We were almost there, getting onto 1-4 off the Turnpike, and what do we see but a billboard for the place we are going. Smarty pants Aubree in the backseat says "HEEEYYYY, are we going to THE Fun Spot?  I just saw it on the sign!!" So the cat was out of the bag.  But I sure had fun with it.




There was indeed a very long line to get in when we arrived at 9:45 but it moved quickly.  It turned out they didn't actually open the rides until 11:00 because they were having a ribbon cutting ceremony complete with the mayor of Orlando and some other political folks. I will say I was impressed when someone (the owner?) had a prayer before they cut the ribbon.  That really surprised me.  The kids were getting pretty impatient but they were up and running before too long.  I traded off with Jennifer taking Brady on a small roller coaster while she watched Colby and vice versa with Addison and London.  Brady was not impressed.  He said his stomach hurt when we got off and he definitely didn't want to do that again.

This helicopter came in and tried to land in the parking lot while we were waiting in line but aborted the mission in the end.  Kind of scary I have to admit.

The groundbreaking.  We didn't get too close.

One of the other rides in the kiddie area was one of those swing rides where each kid sits in their own swing and then the whole thing goes around and around.  I noticed the height minimum was 24 inches which meant Colby could go on it.  But there aren't actual straps on the seats so that struck me as odd since obviously a parent wasn't on the ride with the kid.  I muttered all this to Jennifer and then I noticed another kid about Colby's age on the ride as it was going and they were just sitting there having a grand time.  So I though, "Hmm, maybe it's not a big deal." What was I thinking??? I put Brady in a swing and then put Colby in the next one and put the bar down (which doesn't actually do anything).  I then exited that area and went around to where I could take a picture.  Well, the attendant then starting helping some other kid in a swing and then slowly started checking other swings on the other side.  Colby started getting bored and what does he do but start trying to stand up...in a swing.  NOT GOOD!  I started completely freaking out and screaming for the attendant who appeared to be deaf or something.  Other people started trying to get his attention, pointing and all that but he was so oblivious.  I started running trying to get to where I could get to him but there were so many kids in the way.  It felt like it was in slow motion. I was yelling at Colby to sit down as loudly as I could.  He would try to stand and then sit and then do it again.  After what felt like FOREVER but was probably like 60 seconds, the attendant finally realized what was happening and went over and got him out as I made my to his side too.  Seriously, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.  THE WORST.  Right up there with Brady falling out of the cart at Costco.  Lesson learned.  I'm sure he would have been fine while the ride was actually going but yeah, a 16-month old isn't going to just sit there peacefully for five minutes waiting for it to start.  And really, what in the world is The Fun Spot thinking?  Can you say lawsuit??

I should have known he was already plotting to get out when I took this picture.

Other than that slight hiccup, we had a blast.  The park turned out to not be crowded at all.  We maybe waited at the most 10 minutes for some rides, less for many.  Vasti took the girls with her and her boys to do some of the roller coasters and other stuff while I did stuff with my boys.  We had brought a picnic for lunch which we ate in the restaurant with the rest of the group.  Right before lunch, we got to do a "backstage tour" which was the marketing manager telling us all about the park and letting us ask questions.  Of course, Calleigh raised her hand several times and was all into it.

Colby did get to go on this ride at least.

Brady with Addison.

You had to pay for this one so it was a no go.  But Brady wanted his picture with the "bad guy," of course.

Listening to the facts about the park.

This was what Brady did for most of that time with Dawn's Jonathan.  It's a popular name.

Calleigh took some kind of poll at lunch.  You can barely see it but Colby had his hand raised too.

Last ride of the day....the double decker caroussel.

A big thing that Brady got to do was the bumper cars.  He had missed out at Edaville Railroad but you only had to be 36 inches to ride them here with an adult.  He is juuuusssst 36 inches.  He road with Jennifer while I went with Aubree and Calleigh was able to drive them by herself.  A great time! The highlight for me though was go-carts.  They had four different courses and they looked SO fun. Unfortunately you had to be 54 inches to ride by yourself, which none of my crew are at yet.  We were at the mercy of the other ladies to stay with Colby while I took each kid but of course, each of the ladies had their own kid to take.  But, we finally got it figured out.  Brady went with me on the second round.  I tried to go pretty slowly for him but there was no smile of any sort as we went up the ramp and over a hill.  When we went by the starting point he said "We're doing it again???  I don't want to!!" So then I had to go REALLY slowly for the next lap and then just pull in and stop once we got around again.  Not too fun for me as I was itching to go fast but maybe next time.  That was my answer to the kids.  "We'll do it next time." What I didn't say was that there most likely wouldn't be a next time because it's $45 for adults and $35 for kids.  I suppose that's cheap compared to Disney but still...Anyway, a fun day was had by all and best of all it was free!

Not too much going on the last couple of days.  We are still taking it easy with the school...finding other educational stuff to do besides "school." Today we were back out at yard sales after about a seven week hiatus so that felt good even though it's pretty light (only about five sales).  At our first stop, the lady (probably my dad's age) took a huge liking to Colby (the other kids were in the van) and followed him around everywhere.  She had a big smile on her face and told me "I just love little boys." Colby found a particular truck to play with and she told me that Colby could have it.  She said that her son died and it made her feel good to see little boys and do nice things for them.  I thought she was going to say he son died many years ago as a kid but when I asked her about him she said that he had just died at the age or 38 from pancreatic cancer and that this was his house where they were having the sale.  That hit close to home being 38 and all.  At any rate, I felt happy we were able to bring her a little bit of joy.

We have not been formally potty training at all because...well, because Brady still really isn't ready to take it seriously.  But he does like to wear the underwear every now and then so every few weeks he gets into a mood to put the underwear on.  And then usually a few hours later he has a pee accident some random place.  Oh, he goes through the motions and gets my hopes up by sitting on the potty but NOTHING EVER HAPPENS.  Ever.  But when it does...or should that be "if" because that's how I feel at this point...it looks like it has the potential to be very messy.  He has a potty seat that he sits on but I ask you, how do you keep the boy part in the proper place so that pee doesn't spray all over the room?  I can see how the next 18 years or whatever have the potential to be very messy ones. Anyway, that's what prompted this conversation as he sat on the potty seat today:

Brady: "MOM!  I can't keep it down.  It keeps coming up."
Me:"Brady, just put it down so that it's underneath that little ridge on the seat.  You might have to just hold it like that."
Brady (a few seconds later):"It popped up again.  It won't stay down.  I guess I'm going to have to just cut my ding dong off."

Yup!  That's sure to solve it!

We just finished this great book Naya Nuki about an 11-year old Indian girl who is captured in the early 1800's in Montana and manages to escape by herself and walk back to her tribe...by foot over 1,000 miles.  Amazing story.  Anyway, since we have been doing a lot about Indians this school year it has prompted all kinds of Indian things like pretending their hot dogs for lunch today were really buffalo meat and then there was this:

Me: "Um, girls, why is everyone outside playing in their underwear?"
Calleigh:"Because we're playing Indians!"

And the connection is?  No, really.  I'm asking YOU because I have no idea what it is.

It's kind of hard to tell but I'm pretty certain she is clothed here.

I'm hesitant to say this but I think Colby might have been slightly less crabby this week.  Hmmm. I hope I haven't jinxed myself.  His talking is continuing to expand.  After he got up from his nap yesterday and we were hanging around outside he started saying something like "Cah,cah." I thought, ah ha!  I know what he's saying.  I let him inside, he ran to the pantry which was open, and went right to the crackers to get some out.

A couple of other pictures...

Soccer started again on Sunday.  The crowd has gotten bigger.

Calleigh hanging out with Fonta, Caroline, and Caroline's brother.

While Colby hangs out with Braelyn

The girls were doing some kind of show, wearing my boots...but thankfully clothed.

We watched a great documentary on Net Flix called "Living on One Dollar" about four college guys who go to Guatemala for 2 months to live as they do on one dollar a day.  Very, very insightful especially since Ana is from Guatemala.  Not sure Brady got much out of it though.

Have a wonderful weekend.  I know I will (info on that next time!).