Bucket List

Yesterday I had the day off so we decided to take the team on an adventure.  The Crayola Factory has been on our kid-trip-bucket-list for awhile, so we packed up the fam (and the potty) and headed north to Easton.

I won't go into a lengthy review of the place, but let's just say we should have pre-read the Trip Advisor reviews and nixed the whole idea (specifically the one titled, “Death trap, fire hazard waiting to happen!”)  On a positive note, there were no fires and we got a couple of cute touristy pictures of the boys atop a marker.

Moving onto Phase II of our adventure, we went to visit Phil's brother and sister-in-law who live close by to the Death Trap.  We swam in their pool and hung out on the trampoline, then David asked, "Do you want to go for a ride on the golf cart?"

Umm, yes.

 

 There were 3 main points of interest to the golf cart extravaganza.

1. The boys got a kick out of being able to "drive" while sitting on Phil's lap.

2. They discovered the joys of jumping off the back, running to catch up to the cart, grabbing the pole and dragging themselves on the back "like Indiana Jones."

3. As Phil was going up a hill from grass to gravel, he stopped then started really quickly and threw me off the back.  Then kept going.

It was one of those days where the boys laughed their fool heads off, ran themselves to the ground, ate too many Doritos, then passed out on the ride home. And save for the bits of gravel lodged into my palms, I'd agree that it was a pretty good day.

Turns out the adventure that wasn't even on the bucket list end up being the most memorable.  Wild ride on a golf chart, check.

Today.

It has admittedly been a ridiculously long time since I posted on this blog.  Long story short, life is busy.

But there were 2 things that happened to me today that inspired me to come back.  2 moments that I thought, "I don't ever want to forget this happening" because they (a) Made me so proud of my boys and (b) Made me proud of Phil and myself as parents.

We went to Tyler Arboretum for a quick hike before dinner. As we were walking back to the car Charlie said, "Mommy, after dinner tonight can we sit as a family and hug together? Even the grown ups?"

He said it with such sincerity that it literally stopped me in my tracks.  I mean, seriously?!?

To get out of the arboretum you have to walk through their tiny gift shop.  Cole had been clutching his $5 allowance the whole time (including when he was climbing up and down the tree house exhibits - grounds for a mommy heart attack).  He had been talking the whole time about the $2.50 quartz sample that he was planning on buying at the end.

When he went up to the counter he had 2.  He told the cashier that he had just enough to buy one for his brother Ryan and one for himself.

A $2.50 gesture but so telling of our Coley.

In other news - we're deep into potty training Dean.  Apologies to any of the patrons who witnessed a 3 year old squatting on a mini toilet in the trunk of our van.  A kid's gotta do what a kid's gotta do.