After a whirlwind week spent with Grandma and Pa in Maryland, Mo and Co returned home to Norfolk more loquacious and more cultured than ever. It’s had to compete with a week that included a visit to a petting zoo, a water park, a mega carousel, all the grand-parental attention one’s little hear could desire, and a trip to the Kennedy Center to meet the cast of The Color Purple –thanks, Uncle Brandon, for introducing the girls to Fantasia. Please give her my regards and my apologies as I truly want her to know that I do in fact feed my children, several times a day, in fact. I was absolutely mortified to learn that they both pilfered her dressing room’s craft cart for Doritos and Capri Suns. A reimbursement check is in the mail.
Never one to let moss grow under their feet, DH and I kept the good times rolling, whisking them to OceanBreeze Water Park on Sunday. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical about the place. There was just something a little off in all of the propaganda advertisements that I’d seen. I grew up going to Six Flags and WaterCountry, so everything that wasn’t those two establishments was kind of rinky-dink. Still, it’s nice to be surprised, and surprised I certainly was. There was a huge pool that churned out massive waves every fifteen minutes preceded by Queen’s “We Will Rock You“. There was a log flume, a kiddie oasis, kiddie slides, and loads of reclining chairs perfect for stowing you chair and for people watching (that’s another blog entry entirely!). The weather was great and once we had completely exhausted the girls, we took their pruny fingered selves to the picnic area for the lunch I had made. It finally felt like summer to me, sitting out there in the mid-afternoon shade, my bathing suit riding precariously up into places not suitable for mentioning here, the girls running back and forth from the table to take a bite of this and a taste of that. I felt like belting out a little Mungo Jerry right then and there.
No rest for the weary; we jumped into the week feet first and have been participating in VBS at church. Mo is in Amicus house and I’ve been volunteering as games leader, running the Roman Aqueduct. Well, it’s more a series of carefully fashioned gutters that allow kids to run change filled balls into a basket at the bottom of the course. The money goes to the church’s Living Waters ministry, which builds potable water systems in countries that are without such water. The game is really cool and the kids love racing one another to see who’s money gets to the bottom first.
And of course, we’ve continued our quest for mermaids. I think I’m going to have an addendum to this book I’m working on because the elusive mermaid list keeps on growing. There are at least half a dozen that are affixed to the sides of buildings, way up high. Unless Mo and Co are bitten by radioactive spiders, we just aren’t going to get to those. I doubt we will ever top our record of seven in one day, but we managed to take pictures with three and photographed two others that were just a tad out of reach.
My camera does the trick for most shots, but when it comes to zooming it falls kind of short. I’m hoping someone will see these pitiable shots and bless me with a new camera come September 8th (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).
