Jumpin'

Now that the weather is much cooler, we have to be a bit more creative in our efforts to stay active.  Gone are the long afternoons at the beach or the city pool.  We discovered a nearby gem where the kids can jump around in multiple bouncy houses and I can work on my own schoolwork.

It's always great when I find something that works for everybody.  I can see coming here quite often this fall and winter!

Buster and Joey

This summer, Buster made his very first best buddy.  He and Joey were literally inseperable.  First thing in the morning Buster would ask to go outside and often he and Joey would play still clad in their p.j.'s and sticky from pancake syrup.  They shared towysw and even shoes sometimes.  They rode bikes, caught toads, and squirted the girls with water guns.  Joey moved to Arizona not long after the flood.  Buster still talks about him all the time and we will hopefully visit him and his family in Estes Park next summer!

In The Meantime

After evacuating due to the flood, we really had no idea where to go.  We drove around for hours looking for somewhere else to stay, but due to the circumstances everywhere was either empty due to evacuation or full for the same reason.  It was an extremely frustrating time.  We finally found a place that we really liked, but it smelled so horrible from the dairy farm right next door that we just could not see ourselves staying there for any length of time.  Finally we decided to bide our time at a local state park.  There were several playgrounds for the kids to play at, a large laundryroom that also had a an area set up with tables that we used to do school work when it was cold, and a nice restroom and showers.  Despite all the good, I have to admit that I was miserable here.  Even looking at the pictures now I still feel almost depressed just thinking about it.  

 

 The kids were happy here for the most part, but it was a stressful time.  The bees were terrible and each of the kids was stung at least once.  Tea's leg ended up swelling and they are all now very afraid of bees.

 

We were only here for two weeks, but it seemed like much longer.  Many of our neighbors were fellow evacuees but everyone was under tremendous stress and that resulted in a lot of drama that we were thankfully not involved in.  I believe everthing that happened in the two weeks following the flood strongly influenced our decision to return to the park we evacuated from despite the devestation it endured.