Summer Fun Idea #462

#462:  Make a water park. 

Day one of summer break.  I think they mastered this one.  I was actually pretty impressed by the ingenuity of the four of them, although that's probably giving Sam a little too much credit since I'm sure he just stood around looking cute.  But the other three came up with the idea all on their own and managed to maneuver a half empty swimming pool up the hill and under the slide.

Looks like fun to me!

Now, if we can only stayed as well entertained the rest of the summer, we'll be fine. 

A boy and his cars.

For a while, Sam was obsessed with trains.  We've now moved on to a more grown up obsession. 

The car.

Cars go everywhere with us.  In our pockets, in our backpack, in Mommy's purse, in the car, hidden in all the little holes of his booster seat.  If he's awake (and not eating...but that's a whole other post), there's a good chance he has a car in his hand.  He would literally play with cars all day long if given the option. 

And if he can't be playing with a car, he is acting like one.  While walking through Lowe's the other day, he kept sliding over in front of me while we were walking.  After about the third time and me telling him yet again to pay attention to where he was going, he sweetly informed me, "Mommy!  I'm just drifting."  Which is termonology used on his Cars Wii game. 

Oh, well excuse me.

Let's just say it's a good thing he not really drifting...er, driving yet.  I don't think I'm ready for that.

Happy Mother's Day. [enter sarcasm]

Mother's Day this year around here started out as a wet one.  And well, it ended up pretty wet, too.

As in buckets upon buckets of rain.  Just a generally nasty day.  Kinda chilly too.  Just made me want to get back in bed and sleep all day.  And we pretty much planned to do just that after church.

We headed back home after service and after an unsuccessful attempt by the boys (all 3 of them) to sneak in a trip to McDonald's under the guise that they didn't want me to have to cook lunch on Mother's Day.  But you see, I already thought that through and a nice big deli pizza was waiting for us in the fridge at home.  Much to their dismay.

Seeing as it had been about a month since something exciting had happened around here (see "I fell down."), we really shouldn't have been surprised by the events that transpired over the next few hours.

After getting home and making sure everyone had a wardrobe change into something comfy, I sent Charlie downstairs to grab the pizza from the extra fridge in the basement.  I should mentioned that half of our basement is finished and houses the boy's playroom/family room and the laundry room.  The other half is unfinished storage space.

"Mommy, the floor is wet." 
Stated very calm.  Cool as a cucumber.  Without a hint of alarm.
"Where?"
"Downstairs."

Thinking to myself, "Well, duh, I know downstairs, but where downstairs??" as I strolled to the stairs to go check out what I assumed might be a spilled cup.

That thought soon flew out the window as I heard a dreadful splashing sound as I made my way down the stairs.

That's right.  Splashing.  Inside.  My house.

The only time that's okay is if a tub and rambunctious children are involved.

And they weren't.

It's also not ok to discover that splashing has originated from a huge crack in the foundation of your house.  And now you are standing in a good 3 inches of water.

Here is where I had a momentary loss of brain function and started yelling to Kenny about the new pool in the playroom.  I then proceed to go up and down the stairs no fewer than 12 times without accomplishing anything because I didn't know what to do or where to start.  I mean, our house was leaking!!!

I finally yelled to Sam to bring me some towels. 

To which Kenny, who was now downstairs standing in our pond, responded by saying, "Towels?  Really?  We are past the point of towels!!"  (The towels were to keep us from tracking water all over the house.  Because the only thing I did accomplish by running up and down the stairs was making a huge, slippery mess on the stairs and the kitchen floor.)

The stats:  huge crack, lots of water, lots of wet stuff, two hungry boys, one bucket-toting dad...and a mommy who had just come to the realization that I was probably not going to get that Mother's Day nap I was after.

After a few phone calls, we were soon accompanied by great friends, multiple shop vacs, another great friend who also happens to be a general contractor, some hydraulic concrete, a handheld jackhammer, a bunch of fans and two dehumidifiers.  And two more hungry kids.  But don't worry.  I donned my life jacket and paddled my canoe to the other side of the basement and that pizza was now toasting nicely in the oven.

Fortunately, when we finished the playroom several years ago, we took into account that it was a basement and occasionally unfortunate things happen and basements flood.  We went the route of carpet tiles instead of actual laid carpet.  And while the carpet tiles were now floating around the basement, it made it easy for us to start ripping it up, hoping to salvage all that we could and start sucking up water.

I'll skip the rest of the details and let you know that over the next few hours, my house turned to complete chaos as we moved as much as we could upstairs to dry, including those carpet squares (which weigh about 20 lbs a piece when wet, by the way), and the guys made our crack bigger with the jackhammer before using special cement to stop the gushing water.

This was after the puddles had been sucked up, but before we took out all the carpet and moved everything else.  First priority was stopping the water that was freely flowing from that giant repaired crack you see.

And in case you are concerned about the structure of our house, this was actually an existing crack, that had been patched, but not patched well.  Obviously.  I made certain that we didn't need to call "the professionals" to come check it out.  Professional what, I don't know.  A crack doctor?  Who do you even call when your house is squiring water at you??  Understand now why I had a momentary lack of common sense?

Yeah, that book shelf and a lot of those books had to go.  They were soaked.  You know, from all the squirting.

Sooooo, parts of my house are still displaced throughout other parts of the house.  And now that it's all dried out, it's got to be scrubbed clean and put back together.  The downside to carpet tiles...it's gonna be the biggest jigsaw puzzle ever as we figure out where each tile goes since they were cut specifically to fit the playroom.  Sigh.

Maybe I'll just leave it and we'll celebrate Father's Day by putting it all back together again.

Cameras and water. But not at the same time.

Let me catch you up.

I turned 31.  A couple of weeks ago.  Yes, I just revealed my age.

So I got one of these.

Which was exactly what I wanted.  I needed something that would take great pictures, but I don't have time to learn how to use a DSLR.  Or the budget needed for one of those.  So, after much research, this was the winner.

Which means, you should see a lot more pictures around here.  Instead of only when I have my mom's camera.

I'll start by giving you the inaugural slide of the season pictures from this afternoon.  Finally drug out the 'ol slip 'n slide.  And despite the fact that it was 49 degrees this morning, it warmed up nicely.

It's almost summertime!  One more week of school and we are home free...

Also means we can grow our Mr. T haircuts that Mommy let us sport for one day back out. 

Although, Mommy prefers the Mr. Clean look.  We'll see who wins that battle...

Hard work.

Why bother cutting your neglected yard with one of these...

...when clearly it's more fun to cut it like this.




And before y'all go jumping to conclusions, it was completely Charlie's idea to cut the grass with scissors. And it only lasted about 10 minutes and he was done.  He thought he was gonna cut the whole yard.

Seems Daddy's way was much faster.

Fun stuff.

Some more pics from Spring Break.  When you are laying in bed all week, you have time to do fun things to them.

Spring Break Review, Part 2

Sorry, let me continue with our Spring Break Review.  Two weeks later.  I've apparently lost all track of time in my old age...

You know we had to have lots of snacks.  Really, food in general.

Played at a park where vikings apparently used to play.

Climbed on some rocks and showed our muscles.

Wondered why in Kentucky, people build gazeboos around rocks.  Instead of moving the rocks.  Or moving the gazebo.

Had fun making Easter cookies.  (Yes, it was after Easter, but whatever.)

Went to a big hole in the ground.  And paid money to go into it.  You know, years and years ago, that’s what those that were affluent spent their money on.  Extravagant trips into a cave.  We were just pretending.

Took a few family snapshots.

And celebrated a 4-year-old birthday.