Category: Kids

Indiana Beach is getting expensive

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I saw an advertisement recently for Indiana Beach where they were boasting about free admission so I went to their website to check it out. At first I was all excited because they said they are waiving the $2.50 per person admission fee to the park for the first time since 1972. That was until I saw that they raised the price of the ride wristbands from $23 to $27. Uh, thanks? So now it’s going to cost more than last year even with the so called free admission. Not only that, but they have special events every single weekend we have the kids in June and July, so the only possible “slow” Saturday would be in late August unless we take time off during the week to go.

If it was up to me and me only, we wouldn’t go at all. But I know the kids love it there, so we’ll go and I’ll try to focus on the tacos I’ll get to eat since that’s the only thing I look forward to regarding that place these days. Their prices are getting to the point it hardly seems worth the 2 hour drive each way to deal with a bunch of people crammed on a boardwalk. Great America is a hell of a lot closer but they want $55 per person just to get in the park. Are there even enough rides there to entertain two kids who do not like rollercoasters? I looked at their website but it didn’t look promising.

Renovations, sparkly frogs and my new speedlite

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Thursday Joe finished coloring and sealing the grout in the foyer and guest bath. It came out real nice! I will be posting photos once everything is done, but we’re not there yet. We (mostly he) still need to finish painting the vanity (it’s looking real good), buy a sink and counter top, repair the wall in the bathroom, paint the bathroom, put the toilet back in, paint the trim around the front door, and paint the wall above the front door. Ideally we’d like to be done before Memorial Day since we’re having friends over, but that might be overly ambitious for us.

Friday we went to K’s school for a concert. We didn’t get home until almost 10 pm so we ended up sleeping in later than planned on Saturday. We were lazy that day just playing some board games and watching a movie, Bedtime Stories, with E since K wasn’t interested in it.

Sunday after our regular grocery shopping we headed to a local fest where I bought this cute little beanbag frog. He’s so sparkly!

After stuffing our faces with orange chicken and a fried Snickers bar (yum), we drove around looking for open houses but all the properties we toured were disappointing. We’d like to get a house this year since prices are low, but we’re both very picky so we’ll see what happens. I’d really like to stop sharing walls with people. Our neighbors are getting increasingly louder. On one side they slam their cabinets constantly and have a toddler who shrieks to high heaven, on the other side they slam their front door, have a dog that barks all the time, and recently turned up the bass on their television which seems to be on all the time. I really should talk to them about it, and may still do so, but I hate confrontation because most times people don’t respond well. But the bass thing in particular is really starting to drive me nuts. I can hear/feel it as I write this. Where does it state I’m not entitled to some peace and quiet? It’s bad enough I can’t keep my windows open for any length of time because they’re smokers. Anyway…

Last night I tested out the new speedlite I bought for my camera, resulting in two new photos of Oreo I posted over @ Flickr – photo #1 and photo #2. I’m still getting the hang of it but I really like how it illuminates shots. I’m hoping it will net me some good photos next week while we’re off. I’ve got a bunch of fun things planned and cannot wait! Only four more work days to go.

Let’s Get Organized

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We did a little Spring cleaning this weekend, most notably in the garage. We ended up with the back of the Escape full of stuff to donate to Goodwill. It feels really good to purge!

garage

I’m a bit shocked at how many storage totes we have just for decorations, though. There are three for Fall/Halloween and five for Christmas. WTF?

I photographed E’s bike which I plan to sell on Craigslist. He’s had it for a couple of years now, but other than the initial excitement when he got it, hasn’t been interested in learning how to ride it. No amount of cajoling with convince him otherwise, so why not let someone else enjoy it? They are going to get a good deal since it’s in mint condition and we’re asking less than we paid and including the helmet for free.

bikeforsale2

How sad is it that neither one of Joe’s kids know how to ride a bike, though? I’m sure they’re not the only ones; it’s a sign of the times, unfortunately, but I can’t help but think of when I was a kid riding my bike all over the neighborhood. They are missing out even if they don’t realize it or care, kinda like my brother who also doesn’t know how to ride a bike. I used to ride his mountain bike too since he never bothered. :)

While Joe worked on removing the nasty green adhesive that was discovered underneath the flooring in our foyer that he ripped up during the week, I organized the junk drawer and kitchen utensil drawer. See how pretty they look?


junk_drawer

kitchen_utensils

Now I need to work on getting the kids to purge their old toys they don’t use anymore. That’s my plan for this weekend. I want to make sure K is ok with me donating her Barbie van. Plus I’ve got way too much Playdoh in this house. I’m tempted to bring it out and play with it myself!

Merry Christmas

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Hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas!

Yesterday morning around 11 am the kids’ mom dropped them off and first thing they did was open their presents. I filmed it for their grandparents since they couldn’t be here. They seemed excited over each present which is always nice.

I got the duty of ripping CDs and putting them on the kids’ MP3 players (yea, I noticed K’s iPod was set to French somehow; let me tell you how much fun it was trying to find the word Settings in French so I could change the language back to English). They’re both running out of room for all their music. Shoot, I’m even down to my last 10 GB on my 80 GB iPod! In order to conserve space, I ripped the new CDs at 256 kbps instead of the usual 320 kbps.

In addition to several checks, the kids each got cash from Joe’s parents and a Visa gift card from Joe’s brother. So we braved the crowds and went to Target this morning after a quick breakfast of cinnamon rolls. It really wasn’t as crowded as I feared, although it was tight around the holiday section since everything is 50% off. I got a few things myself, but didn’t go too crazy since we didn’t need much.

Christmas supplies for next year

Most of the available wrapping paper designs were downright ugly. I could tell the other shoppers agreed because I watched several people pull out a roll, look at it, then put it back. I finally found some cute stuff over by the holiday party supplies.

E got another Nerf gun since he liked the dart tag set (pictured below) we bought him.

I am amazed at how far those darts go! I tried filming it but you can’t even see the darts in the video; they are that fast! We are going to have a blast playing with those come Spring.

E also got a few DVDs, baseball cards, and Pokemon cards. We’ve been trying to limit the Pokemon cards because they are so expensive. I tried explaining to him that he’s better off collecting the baseball cards since chances are he’ll still be into them when he’s older and not so much with the Pokemon cards. He has to own at least several hundred dollars worth of Pokemon cards by now. Seriously, at $4 for one pack I can only imagine.

K bought a new case for her iPod and Sony earbuds like the ones Joe got me. For only $10 I’m pretty impressed with the sound quality. I tested them out last night before going to bed.

Not sure what our plans are for the rest of the day. The kids seem content to be up in their rooms playing with all their new toys. I will probably drag them downstairs later to watch a movie. Thinking of Space Chimps since it’s available via On Demand and doesn’t require a trip to Blockbuster.

Weekend Snippets

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Yesterday we took the kids to a matinee. We split up and Joe took his daughter to see Twilight while I took his son to see Bolt. Personally, I think Joe got the bum deal since Bolt was fantastic. I didn’t even mind it being in 3-D even thought the glasses aren’t very comfortable.

After the movies we stopped at the produce market and got all sorts of yummy food for lunch, including meats and cheese from the deli. Add to that the taco bar leftovers from Friday night’s dinner, and the leftover spaghetti and meatballs from last night’s dinner, and we’ve got plenty of food for the next couple of days. That means yours truly doesn’t have to cook!

Target has some real comfy pajama pants on sale for $9.99 and since I’ve been hanging on to a few pairs of mine with holes, I took advantage and bought a pair on Friday. Now I can throw the ratty ones out. Unfortunately, I forgot to get another pair while there this morning so I guess I’ll be stopping on the way home from work this week. I also forgot to refill my prescriptions because I am very disorganized lately, so at least the extra trip will be productive.

My curling iron broke the other day so I priced them at Walmart. The one I liked was $25 which seemed a bit high, so I decided to look elsewhere. I recalled buying one for a good price at Ulta a few years ago so we stopped there and sure enough, the same one I liked at Walmart was $16.49 according to the tag. Even better, it rang up $10.99 at the register and I had a coupon for $3.50 off any item $10 or more so after tax it was $8.04. Man, do I love a good deal!