Pioneer Day in Sevens

That is 1847, Seven Peaks, 7 hours, 7 people sleeping in our house . . .

Having staples in his head and missing swimming lessons turned out to not be as traumatic for Andrew as I feared. I was able to go visiting teaching during the lessons, and I only mention that because Andrew felt like he was going on play dates. Hooray for both of us. He also got invited to play at a friend's house, and I told him it was "play club" because he's too little for the book club Josh and Noah are in. He loved it all and played with a huge smile, and didn't complain about not swimming, even though he loves it. Sweet boy!

Tuesday night brought another fun visitor to our house - Shannon! By the time she got to our house it was time for bed, though not before the boys "impressed" her with a jumping off the couch show. I told the boys Aunt Shannon is in the army, and Andrew went upstairs and put on his play army helmet. She loved it, of course.

Fun traditions started out Pioneer Day the next day - pancakes from Gary (blueberry!) and taking Andrew to the urgent care to get his staples out. We'll only carry on one of those traditions. Right after that we loaded up the van and headed to Seven Peaks. Not only did Shannon come, but we met Eric there, and later on Sara and her 5 boys joined us.

Lissy just chillin' in a tube while she waits for the others.

Haha, I uploaded the wrong picture . . . will have to replace this later. It's a group shot of the Seven Peaks crew!

Josh is great at the rope swing.

This picture cracks me up. After nearly 7 hours at the water park, Gary agreed to take the boys on one last slide. Noah was too tired to agree on what to do. Haha!

We've been to Seven Peaks several times this summer, and played with many fun people there, but I hardly ever take pictures. It's a water park! I randomly got those shots at the end. We had such a great time on Pioneer Day with Shannon and Eric that we stayed for 7 hours . . .yeah, unplanned, but we kept having more fun. So many adults to take kids on slides and such.

At one point there was a miscommunication about who was watching Andrew.  I was in charge of Lissy, and  she was loving the slides in the little-kid area. She sat on my lap as I went down, and the second we got to the bottom, she was motioning to go again. We went down over and over, and then over again, Lissy squealing with excitement every time. After a while I needed a break, so I decided to take her on a tube slide. I was kind of nervous about needing to hold onto her, and she seemed a little freaked out, but when we got to the bottom she said "fun" for the first time.

After the tube slide I sat down and talked to Sara for 10 to 15 minutes, and then decided to go find the rest of my family. I found my kids enjoying lap after lap in the lazy river with Shannon. All of my kids except Andrew. Shannon said Gary was riding a scary water slide with Eric, and Andrew hadn't ever been with her.   I hadn't been with Andrew for over an hour, oh my goodness!!

I ran back to the little kids' pool and started feverishly searching for him. I thought of every possibility, planned what I'd say on the news, and tried my best to stay calm while doing so. When I didn't find him in any of the pools, I almost started bawling, but I took a deep breath and kept looking. I found him by the side of one of the pools with his hands on his knees. When I shouted his name and he saw me, I expected him to come running, or tell me how scared he was . . . but he just said, "I need to go to the bathroom." I asked him if he'd been having fun and he said, "Yes, but I was waiting." Poor kid. Sweet as sugar kid. I love that boy!

My favorite memory of the day was right after that when I took Andrew and Lissy to the wave pool. It's actually very shallow for quite a while, and we just relaxed and played. Andrew and Lissy had water bottles - one to drink fresh water out of, one to pour on each other. We jumped some waves, and layed back and let the water wash up on our bellies. Cutie pies.

Of course after 7 hours of fun we were starved - and lucky for us, Eric and Shannon came to our house to have a barbeque! Nothing fancy, but it was delicious, and great company. All of the above is just what the pioneers would have done, right? Well, if they had water parks and grills.

Thursday morning was the last day of swim lessons. Andrew finally got to participate, and I got to chat with Shannon while the boys all swam. Josh passed level 3 and Noah passed level 1 - way to go boys!

Noah in his class.

Josh passing off a skill for his class.

Can you pick out Andrew?

There he is!

It's the swim-party move.

One of the reasons swim lessons are so amazing - friends!

Before we went to swim lessons, we all ran over to the track to get some exercise. We only got a few laps in before it turned into a football game of Me and Josh vs. Noah and Shannon. Both teams got touchdowns, but I guess Josh did some trick at the end that made us win? I don't know, I was gone by that point, and felt sure Noah had us beat with "Blue 42." (The play he ran, of course.) Shannon says next time they'll win. We'll see.

Shannon was such a big help (hello matched socks in the laundry), so great to talk to, and so fun with the kids, we didn't want to see her go. However, we have lots of family, so she had to move on. The kids immediately asked, "When is Shannon coming back?" Hooray for awesome aunts!