What a thrill

 

Whew, I think I need to keep up with this blog a little more huh??  I couldn’t believe when I retrieved the pictures from my camera and I saw pictures from Kings Island, which felt like a million years ago!  So, Tom took off several days around the Fourth of July and we headed up to Kings Island for a morning/afternoon…

It’s great at Kings Island because there are SO MANY rides Marlo can ride, and ride by HERSELF (which is a major source of giggles and smiles for her, and a few near tears for me).  It is such a weird feeling watching her go riding off in these little cars, all on her own…

And of course this little guy enjoys the cars as well :)  Beep Beep!

I DO NOT want to even think about:

1. the age of 16

2. Drivers Ed

I’m about to keel over!

Driving “the Hummers”!

 

Watch out people, Marlo’s behind the wheel of this monster vehicle!

Off to the trains…

I was lucky enough to get to join the kids on this ride, Woooo baby, what a thrill :)

 

And speaking of thrill, we came upon another small-ish ride, which just looked like these little cars that went around in a circle-kind of a flat rollercoaster going only in a circle and definitely no twists or turns.  So I strapped them in and told them to have fun, I took my post behind the railing and settled in to watch them go mosey-ing around the little turnstyle type ride.  OH BOY, was I wrong!  It was surprisingly ROUGH!  And JERKY!

Thank God, both of them loved it and they were in hysterics the whole time  (though look at the girl behind them with her hands on top of her head, could she look MORE BORED!?! Ha)  (For some reason I cannot figure out, I am unable to load videos embedded within the post where I want them, so I will post that video separately in another post-you HAVE to watch the video of the kids on this ride to get the full effect!)

While Ty and I were off riding some “big boy” rides, Daddy and Marlo went and had a little visit with some of the Peanuts gang :)  Marlo already has an affinity for Snoopy, so she was definitely on the lookout for the pup, but in the meantime she became buddies with Linus, Lucy and Charlie Brown :)

I know some children will not even come within 10 feet of a large character like these, but Marlo in fact does the opposite, she barrels in and smothers them in hugs and high fives, etc.  Not only that, she keeps coming back for more and more!  I’m glad Daddy was the one policing this!

Oh, there he is!  Snoopy actually wasn’t a live character, but Marlo still showed him a lot of love…

Ty and I were keeping busy on this WILD rollercoaster (at least that’d be Ty’s description!).

A little low thrill on the Merry Go Round :)

Marlo likes to screech “Geee UP”, in toddlerspeak that is “giddy up!”.  To say it’s cute is a huge understatement…I wish I had that on video!

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Yay, Ty was actually tall enough to ride the BUMPER CARS!  For the first minute or so, he could not figure out the steering and went in a circle about 10 times.  Finally, he got the hang of it, and he had a few straighaways and a bump or two with another child, then the ride was promptly over…

Sweet story:   The ride was over and all of the kids were getting out, well Ty couldn’t figure out how to get his arm back through the strap and then over his head, so this sweet boy stopped and went out of his way to help him out.  Makes me feel good about “kids these days” ha ha…

 

There’s Marlo again, finding her friend Linus again.  This time she is sharing her Woody doll with him.  Tommy says she was very insistent that Linus keep taking Woody…

Everyone with me now…AWWWWWW!

One more pat for Snoopy.

Just a few random pictures…

A little goofing around in the car, Tommy enjoys taking funky pictures!

Fourth of July at the Adams’ Party, having a little rest in the SUPER DUPER heat!

Enjoying the fireworks, both kids stared at and watched every single BOOM, till it was well after 10PM.

Little Miss Guilty snuck her way into the pantry and smuggled out a juice bag, and as she retreated to the great room she tried her hardest to get the straw into it.  What surprised me about this little episode the most is that she has NEVER had a juice bag before, how does she even know what to do???!!!

I’ll have you know, she was not successful in piercing the straw into the juice bag, so I had to wrestle it away from her and give her a drink in her typical sippy :)

He has my sense of humor.  Clearly.

And finally, we have instituted a new Regan Family tradition…Family Movie Night :)  So far we have done one on a Friday and one on a Saturday.  It has just involved a slight tweak on bedtime routine with everything being done earlier, and we sit the children down in front of the TV in their chairs with a safe snack and a milk.  Maturity levels and attention spans vary (hey, that includes Tommy and I, ha ha ha ha ha), so we know that Ty can pretty much watch an entire movie with only a few hiccups in his attention, but Marlo can only last about 30-40 minutes, tops.  This picture was from our inaugural movie night, during which we watched Madagascar.  I’d say as a family we’d give it a B+, it was cute, but not cute enough that it could keep Marlo’s attention, but it definitely has staying power-we found a Madagascar book story book and Ty has requested that to be read to him every night since!  For our second Family Movie Night we watched Happy Feet.  Final grade on this one, C-.  It was cute for about the first 15-20 minutes, then it just became too mature and the humor went way over the kids’ heads, Marlo was up out of her chair the minute she finished her snack!  Ty lost interest rather quickly, and there were quite a few scary parts.  I think the member of the family who enjoys FMN the most is…Tommy!  And I’d have to say I share in his enthusiasm because it’s just so fun to have the anticipation of the time we spend together, extending bedtime, breaking routine just a little but not enough to be damaging to sleep schedules.  It sort of feels like an itty-bitty vacation :)  I’m constantly on the lookout for the next great choice for our next movie.  GG has broken the Disney Vault somehow and scored us a copy of The Lion King, and we should be able to have that for our next movie night.  I am beyond excited to watch that movie, and I hope the kids find it entertaining as well.  Though, I have to say, nothing has gripped our household as tightly, in terms of movie/character mania as TOY STORY!  Here’s a blog challenge for you to illustrate this very point: go ahead and scroll back up and through all these pictures and count just how many times you see Toy Story paraphernalia…go ahead, I dare you! 

Happy 34th (right?!) birthday GG! :)

Marlo and Grandpa just ‘a swingin’!