Time With My Boys

Our last big vacation while in Texas was planned for this fall. So, our last summer here in Texas we decided to spend doing educational and craft projects close to home. The two older boys had been enrolled in swimming lessons, and since my day off was scheduled while they were home and Lisa was working, I had plans to take them to the Zoo. The night before, Ian, Miles and I had gotten heavily involved in playing with super heroes. Dr. Freeze was the "main bad guy" and so, after they all went to bed, I had fun taking cups of water and placing all but a few of the toys we played with in the freezer. When they woke up in the morning, they had Dr. Freeze maniacally laughing and bragging about how he had gotten all the good guys frozen.

Ian and Miles were excited and appalled at the same time. Here is a picture of Miles pointing to one of the frozen action figures.

Ian was the most concerned, and so I suggested they try different ways to get them out. They pounded them on the back patio, and then discovered that when they turned on the backyard spigot, the room temperature water helped thaw them out. They enjoyed it and wanted to hang out and play longer, but we had swim lessons at Kids Therapeze we needed to get to.

I whisked them out of their pajamas and the two older ones dressed in bathing suits, and got them to the pool with plenty of time to spare. Liam and Ian had their lessons and Miles and I played with some action figures along the stone wall near the "scary plants." By the time the boys were done, they really wanted breakfast so we stopped at HEB for doughnuts and went home for them to change into their Zoo clothes.

 The zoo is located in Waco, and is quite a drive. All morning the weather had slowly been building into a storm and by the time we hit Nolanville and Belton, we were slammed with a huge "Jurassic Park" rain storm (as Liam likes to call it when it rains heavily.) I did my best imitation of Dennis Nedry as we tried to see through the windshield. It didn't show any signs of letting up, and so I pulled over in Temple. The mall was on the exit we turned at, and so I figured we would go there and possibly get lunch.

It was an excellent find as the food court came equipped with a walled in play land. The boys took their time, eating and playing. Naturally it was a lunch that was comprised of hamburgers, chicken nuggets and french fries.

It was still raining when they finished and the mall was virtually deserted so I suggested we go explore the mall. We found out there was a movie theater with nothing playing we were interested in. It also had an arcade that I let them play around in, but did not give them any money for the machines. It was fortuitous because when we finally reached the far side of the mall, we came across the best thing ever!

There was a bungee cord and harness ride that charged $5 per person for a few minutes of jumping. Liam was the only one that expressed even a faint interest, and since there was no line, I decided to have him go first. As you can see in this picture, Liam had a blast. He jumped really high and was ear to ear grin. Any fear the younger boys had evaporated after seeing his experience.

I was a little concerned about the other two as they are so much smaller, and Ian started out making small jumps, but eventually progressed to bouncing really high as well.

Ear to ear grins with him as well.

Miles was the last to go and started out jumping as hard as he could laughing hysterically.

When we finished there, we found the rain had stopped and so we piled in the car and headed back to Killeen. I asked the boys if they wanted to go to the Planetarium and catch a show, but they all responded that they were too tired to do so. They zonked out pretty fast that night. Even though it wasn't quite what we had planned, it turned out to be an awesome day!