I think I failed to mention in the last post (though the title should have given us away) that this week is fulfilling one of our bucket list items. This year we added back "Stay with Nana and Papa" to the list. The difference in this year and last year is that last year it was mainly the kids that stayed with Nana and Papa. I did too because we also used it as a day to get the carpets cleaned but that meant that Steven wasn't there. This year, he has been able to stay as well. We have talked about the possibility of letting the kids stay with them another night but we will likely be so busy in the next few months that we didn't know if that would even be an option. Anyway, I wanted to make mention that we are filling in a checkbox on the bucket list this week. Also, one main difference with how we work on our bucket list versus our Spring Happenings list is that our spring events were planned out week by week beforehand. We had a general outline of when we would do things. Summer is more fluid. We know that if we don't get to everything that we will just do it later or even next year depending on what it is. All of that said, we spent another 4 days with Nana and Papa at the timeshare.
Tuesday morning started super early. It was our first day without Steven. Will woke up at about 5:45 and decided he was done with sleep. I ended up pulling him out of his bed and putting him in bed with me for about 45 minutes because when I tried to leave him, he got loud and Kenzie was still snoring away. After about 45 minutes I turned the TV on for him and he watched some TV while I dozed a few more minutes. Kenzie ended up sleeping until almost 7:30. We knew she was exhausted after she fell asleep on the couch the night before while we were waiting out Will. We were slow to get started in the morning. After a later breakfast we headed out to Target and Publix. We didn't want to do a whole lot because we wanted to get Will down for a nap early since we had afternoon plans. Will went down for a nap super easy. Makes sense since he didn't sleep much the night before. The downfall was that I knew I would need to wake him up early to head out and he probably would have taken a 3 hour nap with the way he was going. Oh well. Such is life of a second kid. Haha! He goes with the flow and doesn't seem to care. Thank goodness. He's the perfect kid to be a second kid. He has his moments (like the 10 minutes we spent this morning keeping him in time out while he yelled about brushing his teeth because he didn't want to stop playing to do it... P.S. I won that one.) but most of the time he is awesome and easy going. While Will was napping it was raining so Kenzie and Nana decided to make cookies. Kenzie chose chocolate chip and she colored while the cookies were baking. It made the house smell awesome. That afternoon we woke Will up to head over to Disney Springs to see the open rehearsal for La Nouba. Ever since we did it the first time, we wanted to try to go again. My parents really wanted to see it too. It is quite cool. It is Tuesday and Friday at 3:30 so we needed to be at Disney Springs by then. We made it over pretty quickly even though it was a rainy afternoon in a tourist area and managed to snag parking right by Cirque. We ran into the fit2run store first to pick up the sticker I wanted for my car and then went to wait for the open rehearsal to start. This time we lucked out and caught the red ribbon ballet (or something like that) which is the aerial act. This one was even better than the trapeze we saw before. There was one girl in costume and they used music because so much of the act is about timing with the music. It was impressive. The aerialists on the silks are at their highest about 45 feet in the air. We watched three girls rehearse but apparently the act uses one man and four women. Afterwards we stayed for the Q&A. Kenzie wanted to ask a question but she wasn't ever called so as we left the performers were still standing in front of the section we were sitting in and she stopped to ask if they were trained as gymnasts or dancers. The performer that answered thought she was adorable and said she trained as both plus was an actress. She told Kenzie to keep practicing dancing and maybe one day she could do something like this. First we have to get her over her "fear" of heights. 45 feet in the air is quite high. Everytime they unrolled from the silks super fast I felt like I might have a mini heart attack. Kenzie might be the death of me if she ends up doing that for a living one day. These kids have already added enough to my gray hairs. We had to wait out some rain when we left La Nouba but eventually made a break for the car. We got back to the house in time to let me go for a (rainy) mile run to finish Day 9 of the streak. The following day was Global Running Day so I wanted to plan to try for a 5k that day and didn't want to do too much on this day. When I got back, Nana was working on dinner. We decided to make tacos and this mac & cheese that I had brought from our house and forgot to make during our barbecue. Strange combination but Joe really wanted to try the mac & cheese he said. It was pretty yummy and while we ate dinner, the rain stopped. That was perfect and let the kids get into the pool for a while before bed. They had been asking all day so we were happy to oblige for a while. In order to fulfill our pattern, they went to bed soooo easily this night. Our pattern has been that one night is good and the next is not so great. Repeat. We were wondering if it would hold through the remainder of our visit.
Wednesday was our earliest start to the day yet. Sort of. Will called me in to cover him around midnight. That's not the early part though. On my way back to the room, I felt so sick all of a sudden. It occurred to me that whatever was up with Will three days before was not necessarily just the pool water like we had been thinking but instead, the weirdest bug ever. 72 hour incubation period and then I got sick once. Just once. I felt bad for about 20 minutes after and then was fine. I felt like I could run a marathon on Wednesday like I had never been sick. That was good too because at 5:30, Kenzie called me from the room and told me she felt like she was going to throw up. I got her to my room in time and she got sick. Like Will, her food had digested and it was mostly phlegm. So weird. She got sick a few more times but between each one was perfectly normal and when it was over, she was fine. She didn't eat like Will did but she immediately started requesting pool time before the rain. Such a strange bug. We figure that is what it had to be though. We seriously have no idea. Just so weird. At least it was super fast and not very uncomfortable. Stomach bugs are one of the worst. Hate them. Anyway, Nana and Papa had to go to some timeshare update thing first thing in the morning so the kids and I were left to our own devices. We decided to go ahead and get in some pool time since it was looking iffy as far as the weather goes and they so wanted pool time. I didn't know if we would get lucky after dinner like we did the night before either, so we had to go in while we could. I decided to sit this one out and just watch them play. I don't know how they haven't shriveled up to nothingness yet or floated away with as much pool time as they have had. They are going to be upset next week when the pool isn't right outside the door. Plus, swimming lessons start next week which will be fine for Kenzie but Will is likely to freak out... more to come on that in a future blog, I'm sure. My parents took quite a while at the timeshare thing but made it back in time for an early lunch of whatever we had in the house basically. It was full on raining cats and dogs at that point so we definitely needed to stay put. We also wanted to finish in time to make it down to the Gatorland show at the rec center at noon. This was the normal show we have all seen before when they do their shows in schools or libraries. This was a bit different though because out of about 75 people in the room, maybe 15 were from Florida and about 10 raised their hands when asked if they had seen an alligator in the wild before. So... you can imagine the excitement. The kids enjoyed it. My favorite part was Will telling me he had to potty and I knew the gator was next (and the last animal) so I tried to get him to wait. He eventually got tired of me and stood up then looked at me and said in all seriousness... "I have to potty, Mommy. I just go myself." and tried to leave. It was hilarious in his little Will voice. He said it with such conviction. My other favorite part was when everyone was asked what wild animal in North America kills more people than alligators, snakes, and sharks combined (white tailed deer btw) and Kenzie yelled "Polar Bear!!!" Well, she believed it. After the show everyone was given the opportunity to hold the gator but Kenzie didn't want to do it. I think the line and amount of people were just too much. Will didn't want to either. We are realizing that he is more like Steven and myself than Kenzie ever was. He has some shyness hanging on in there and he gets overwhelmed with a lot of people. We would have been there a while if we waited anyway and we have held gators before so we decided to sit that one out. Nana took the kids over to play with the Legos in the rec center, Papa went to the bar (surprise, surprise), and I went to go get in a run for Global Running Day and the streak on the treadmill. By the time I made it back to the house, Will was down for a nap and sleeping soundly and we decided to turn on Moana for Kenzie (and Nana since she hasn't seen it) while Will napped since it was still raining outside. Then the funniest thing happened. It was like he had some sort of Maui radar. You're Welcome started playing and Will called from the room because he was awake. He sat up in his bed and told me, "I hear Maui." and then started singing You're Welcome with him. We sat around and watched a bit more before running to Publix. Will had a bit of a breakdown (okay, a pretty serious one) in Publix when he wanted to walk through the entire store alone. As in him on one side of the store and me on the other. I wouldn't let him. Cue screaming. Independence seeking and limit pushing toddlers are so much fun. I removed him from the store until he calmed. Thankfully Nana was there so I didn't have to leave a full cart of groceries at the front until I could come back for it. Yeah... I did that with Kenzie once. Once home we finished Moana, which totally made Nana cry. She is so emotional. Dinner was spaghetti. Will had been asking for it for a few days now. We have done really well with saving money and eating in the timeshare as much as possible. I'm pretty proud of us because it would be super easy to just go out for every meal. While dinner was cooking we had a dance party using the toddler station on Pandora. Will's jam (The Wheels on the Bus) came on so he was happy. He gets pretty into it. Dinner was really good. Something about spaghetti that I didn't have to make myself makes it taste better. Haha! After dinner we took an evening dip in the pool. The kids were obviously tired. That became apparent when at about 7:15 or so Will asked to brush his teeth and go to bed. Okie doke then. Sure enough, he fell asleep super fast. I got Kenzie out of the pool after Will was asleep and got her ready for bed. I put her in bed and about 3 minutes later Will called for water. I think I woke him up when I put her in the room. I thought for sure that she would ask for water too when Will did but when I looked over at her I realized she was fast asleep. It only took about 3 minutes. These kids were beat. I'll take it. They are having a good time and going to bed tired but happy which makes me happy. Everyone turned in sort of early because we had plans to go to a Build a Friend (like Build A Bear) thing in the morning fairly early. Not like the kids would let us sleep in at all anyway...
Thursday didn't turn out like we thought it would... but was so much better. We got up early. Will was up at 6am. Kenzie slept until around 7 and we had breakfast. When it was about time, we went down to the rec center to see about the Build a Friend thing and were given some bad news. Apparently with the rain being so bad the day before they had record numbers and sold over $1000 worth of Build a Friend stuff. Bears average about $20 a pop according to the info we had so you can do the math... They sold out entirely. They had to cancel the Build a Friend activity for the day. The lady talking to us said in a year and a half of doing it once or twice a week that has never happened. Kenzie was devastated. We had been building this up all day the day before and she was so excited. When the lady saw Kenzie get so upset she actually got upset herself. She felt terrible. We initially talked about taking the kids to Target and letting them pick a stuffed animal or something but they didn't really want to do that. We stayed in the rec center and let the kids play with the Legos for a while and discussed our options. I found a sale at Build A Bear and decided to see where one was located as some in our area have closed down and let the kids do that. The closest one was the Florida Mall so we packed up the kids and headed that way. When we got to Build A Bear we were greeted by Ms. Paige. The kids were super excited to build their new friends. They each chose an animal. Will chose a brown bear and Kenzie chose a blue bear. Then Ms. Paige took us over to the stuffing machine and each kid helped her step on the pedal to turn on the stuffer and fill their bear. She had them each choose a heart and they did this adorable sequence of steps such as touching their heart to their brains so their new friends would be smart, to their feet so their friends would run with them, and to their bellies so their friends would never be hungry. Then they made a wish, kissed their hearts and put them in their bears. The bears were closed up and the kids took them to the grooming station to make sure they were perfect. Each kid then chose an outfit. Kenzie's is an adorable romper and Will's is a Cars shirt because he is Cars obsessed. I'm totally adding the Dolphins football uniform to Will's birthday list and Kenzie is already asking for shoes for her bear and all of the Disney princess outfits we can find. They then named their bears and printed out birth certificates. Will's is Fluffy and Kenzie's is Cupcake. So cute! We learned that Build A Bears are basically microchipped. They have bar codes in them so that if they are ever lost and someone brings them to a BAB location they can be mailed back to us. They are also provided lifetime health insurance. If they have any "medical" issues we bring them to a BAB store and they can be fixed for free. Surgery is included. Haha! The kids loved every minute of this process and it was so cute! The kids carried their bears the remainder of the day (and still rarely put them down). Before leaving the mall we checked out the play area. This was a newly remodeled one with a lot of interactive video game like things. The kids enjoyed it. The downfall in my opinion was the lack of a wall around the place. Usually our kids are very good about staying in the areas we designate but it's not them that I don't trust. It's other people. I like the short wall around ours that keeps them in and others out. They had fun though. At this point it was lunch time and we knew we wouldn't make it back to the timeshare so we left the mall and stopped at Wendy's. While in Wendy's the rain kicked up a notch so that made driving back after lunch less enjoyable. Both kids insisted on taking their bears into Wendy's and both were feeding them part of their food while we were in there. These bears may never leave their sides. Will had fallen asleep earlier in the day when we were on our way to the mall so we knew he wouldn't nap. Instead when we got back to the house we turned on Tangled so the kids could "rest" some. Plus, when we started it, it was still raining. Nana got super into the movie. To the point that she would shush anyone talking nearby. Needless to say, we ended up finishing it. I managed to make it down to the fitness center when we first started the movie to do my mile for the day. By the time the movie ended, it was so beautiful outside. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. For the first time in a few days. It didn't last long before the clouds came back in but at least the rain seemed to pass over us. The kids played in the afternoon before dinner but they could have used naps. Not that they were being super duper crazy but Kenzie is getting whiny. She is just over doing it and she doesn't nap... ever. So it is catching up to her. Will is being his usual self which includes annoying his sister to no end. Her craziness makes it worse though.What actually made them act normal and calm down with the arguing ended up being some pool time. We let them get in before dinner and then close to dinner we got them out of the pool and dried off. Dinner was super awesome on Thursday too because Steven was able to make it back. He picked up some pizzas on his way to the timeshare and we all had dinner together. The kids were so happy to see him. After dinner they pretty much made him get in the pool with them. Before we knew it, it was time for bed. The kids were beat. They didn't even argue a lot about getting out. Though part of that might have been Steven's presence again. We put Will to bed first and less than 10 minutes later when we put Kenzie in the room we could already hear Will snoring. Kenzie was asleep in just a few minutes as well. Steven left shortly thereafter. He had to go home to deal with the dog. I stayed at the timeshare to be there in case the kids had any issues. With the waking up at night lately and them being in a shared room when one would wake the other if you didn't make it to the room fast enough, it was better for me to stay around. I was exhausted too so we all ended up calling it a night fairly early.
Friday was our last day with my parents in the timeshare. Although they check out on Saturday, this was the final day we stayed. We figured it was pointless to remain for one more night just to have breakfast and then leave since they will go home shortly after that. Steven was able to come back in too. He took off work to be able to spend another day with everyone. Unfortunately, Kenzie woke up kind of iffy again. I went for my mile run at about 6:45 after the kids had gotten up around 6:15 and when I got back, Kenzie felt sick. She ended up doing the same "throwing up" from a couple days prior. So weird. (Warning... TMI Alert) Basically just dry heaving and she spit a lot because of all the saliva in her mouth. She did it about 5 or 6 times over the course of a couple hours and that was it. We still have no idea what it was. Such a weird, weird stomach bug (if that is even what it is/was). Steven made it over shortly after the throwing up episodes. I think he planned it that way. Momma made me an awesome breakfast because she spoils me. The kids didn't eat much but with their tummies acting up... it wasn't surprising. When Steven arrived the kids were in pool already. Steven ran an errand with Joe and then came back for lunch. We all had lunch and put Will down for his nap. Kenzie has been so crazy with her lack of rest time that we decided to let her lay in our bed and watch TV for a while. Since all that was going on, Momma and I ran out to Target. I needed to pick up a new rash guard for Will to go with a suit he has already and Kenzie has grown out of (like majorly too small now) the two suits I was pushing it on from last year so I wanted to get her a one piece because we like those for swimming lessons and she will need a new rash guard for it. We were able to find a one piece but I am still looking for a rash guard. The Target we went to didn't have any in girls sizes. So weird. We also picked up a dress for me for the night we plan to go out to celebrate birthdays in the Keys. When Will woke up from his nap we spent some more lazy time around the house before suiting up the kids and heading over to the kiddie pool at the big pool again. They love that thing. Kenzie went under the "carwash" over and over again. Will got seriously close to it. He liked using the ones that were shooting water up to give himself a back massage. I think if we had another week, he would be going under the carwash thing too. He was definitely considering it. We didn't stay too long because we needed to get ready for dinner. For our last night together we decided on Longhorn. It was really good. The kids were so good in the restaurant too. My favorite part was when the manager complimented Kenzie's flower in her hair (she wore her Moana dress that Nana and Papa gave her for her graduation) and she said thank you. To which the woman responded, "A child with nice manners! You don't see that much anymore." She seemed impressed. Sidenote: We met up with a little girl maybe about 9 in the bathroom that Kenzie said hi to. The little girl replied hi and while most kids would have likely ended there, this little girl then complimented Kenzie's flower too and thanked me when I held the door for her. So, there are others out there. She seemed like a sweet little girl. After dinner we went back to the timeshare to let the kids (and Steven) get in some more pool time. Steven had to get in because someone had to go to the deep end to retrieve the diving toys. Haha! I packed up a lot of our things while he spent some time with the kids and then we got everyone out and loaded up the car. We left around 8pm and both kids were still awake when we got home. I don't think we got them into bed until close to 9pm. They would usually be fine but with all they have had going on, they were exhausted anyway. However, Will was thrown off and he cried and argued about bed for about 30 minutes before he just couldn't do it anymore and went to sleep. It was a long week.
We had a ton of fun this last week. We are super thankful to my parents that share their timeshare space with us to give us a "staycation" and help the kids have a great time. So, after the first full week of summer, we have put a check mark on Staying with Nana and Papa on the bucket list. This weekend we will likely lay low for the most part. On Saturday Steven has to pick his parents up from the airport because we have their car. Steven has to work on Sunday to prep for going to Melbourne on Monday and staying there most of the week. Other than that, we will see. I don't see much going on though. These kids need to relax. This staycation should be relaxing but they never stopped. There was almost always something going on. Also, I want to rest up some before Steven leaves next week because I know that is going to be a more difficult time for me. I've done the week or so at home with the kids while Steven travels before but this is going to be one week right after another AND is the summer so we have a lot going on already. Plus, this is the first time I have done it in a while and now that the kids are older, they can be more demanding. We also have more going on in general. Like dance and swimming lessons. I think I'm tired already. =) This week was so much fun though and I'm glad we were able to make it all work out. It's just what we needed to start our summer. The only thing that would have made it better would have been having Steven around more but we just made every moment he was with us as great as possible. Thank you again to Nana and Papa for being such awesome hosts.
Tuesday morning started super early. It was our first day without Steven. Will woke up at about 5:45 and decided he was done with sleep. I ended up pulling him out of his bed and putting him in bed with me for about 45 minutes because when I tried to leave him, he got loud and Kenzie was still snoring away. After about 45 minutes I turned the TV on for him and he watched some TV while I dozed a few more minutes. Kenzie ended up sleeping until almost 7:30. We knew she was exhausted after she fell asleep on the couch the night before while we were waiting out Will. We were slow to get started in the morning. After a later breakfast we headed out to Target and Publix. We didn't want to do a whole lot because we wanted to get Will down for a nap early since we had afternoon plans. Will went down for a nap super easy. Makes sense since he didn't sleep much the night before. The downfall was that I knew I would need to wake him up early to head out and he probably would have taken a 3 hour nap with the way he was going. Oh well. Such is life of a second kid. Haha! He goes with the flow and doesn't seem to care. Thank goodness. He's the perfect kid to be a second kid. He has his moments (like the 10 minutes we spent this morning keeping him in time out while he yelled about brushing his teeth because he didn't want to stop playing to do it... P.S. I won that one.) but most of the time he is awesome and easy going. While Will was napping it was raining so Kenzie and Nana decided to make cookies. Kenzie chose chocolate chip and she colored while the cookies were baking. It made the house smell awesome. That afternoon we woke Will up to head over to Disney Springs to see the open rehearsal for La Nouba. Ever since we did it the first time, we wanted to try to go again. My parents really wanted to see it too. It is quite cool. It is Tuesday and Friday at 3:30 so we needed to be at Disney Springs by then. We made it over pretty quickly even though it was a rainy afternoon in a tourist area and managed to snag parking right by Cirque. We ran into the fit2run store first to pick up the sticker I wanted for my car and then went to wait for the open rehearsal to start. This time we lucked out and caught the red ribbon ballet (or something like that) which is the aerial act. This one was even better than the trapeze we saw before. There was one girl in costume and they used music because so much of the act is about timing with the music. It was impressive. The aerialists on the silks are at their highest about 45 feet in the air. We watched three girls rehearse but apparently the act uses one man and four women. Afterwards we stayed for the Q&A. Kenzie wanted to ask a question but she wasn't ever called so as we left the performers were still standing in front of the section we were sitting in and she stopped to ask if they were trained as gymnasts or dancers. The performer that answered thought she was adorable and said she trained as both plus was an actress. She told Kenzie to keep practicing dancing and maybe one day she could do something like this. First we have to get her over her "fear" of heights. 45 feet in the air is quite high. Everytime they unrolled from the silks super fast I felt like I might have a mini heart attack. Kenzie might be the death of me if she ends up doing that for a living one day. These kids have already added enough to my gray hairs. We had to wait out some rain when we left La Nouba but eventually made a break for the car. We got back to the house in time to let me go for a (rainy) mile run to finish Day 9 of the streak. The following day was Global Running Day so I wanted to plan to try for a 5k that day and didn't want to do too much on this day. When I got back, Nana was working on dinner. We decided to make tacos and this mac & cheese that I had brought from our house and forgot to make during our barbecue. Strange combination but Joe really wanted to try the mac & cheese he said. It was pretty yummy and while we ate dinner, the rain stopped. That was perfect and let the kids get into the pool for a while before bed. They had been asking all day so we were happy to oblige for a while. In order to fulfill our pattern, they went to bed soooo easily this night. Our pattern has been that one night is good and the next is not so great. Repeat. We were wondering if it would hold through the remainder of our visit.
Wednesday was our earliest start to the day yet. Sort of. Will called me in to cover him around midnight. That's not the early part though. On my way back to the room, I felt so sick all of a sudden. It occurred to me that whatever was up with Will three days before was not necessarily just the pool water like we had been thinking but instead, the weirdest bug ever. 72 hour incubation period and then I got sick once. Just once. I felt bad for about 20 minutes after and then was fine. I felt like I could run a marathon on Wednesday like I had never been sick. That was good too because at 5:30, Kenzie called me from the room and told me she felt like she was going to throw up. I got her to my room in time and she got sick. Like Will, her food had digested and it was mostly phlegm. So weird. She got sick a few more times but between each one was perfectly normal and when it was over, she was fine. She didn't eat like Will did but she immediately started requesting pool time before the rain. Such a strange bug. We figure that is what it had to be though. We seriously have no idea. Just so weird. At least it was super fast and not very uncomfortable. Stomach bugs are one of the worst. Hate them. Anyway, Nana and Papa had to go to some timeshare update thing first thing in the morning so the kids and I were left to our own devices. We decided to go ahead and get in some pool time since it was looking iffy as far as the weather goes and they so wanted pool time. I didn't know if we would get lucky after dinner like we did the night before either, so we had to go in while we could. I decided to sit this one out and just watch them play. I don't know how they haven't shriveled up to nothingness yet or floated away with as much pool time as they have had. They are going to be upset next week when the pool isn't right outside the door. Plus, swimming lessons start next week which will be fine for Kenzie but Will is likely to freak out... more to come on that in a future blog, I'm sure. My parents took quite a while at the timeshare thing but made it back in time for an early lunch of whatever we had in the house basically. It was full on raining cats and dogs at that point so we definitely needed to stay put. We also wanted to finish in time to make it down to the Gatorland show at the rec center at noon. This was the normal show we have all seen before when they do their shows in schools or libraries. This was a bit different though because out of about 75 people in the room, maybe 15 were from Florida and about 10 raised their hands when asked if they had seen an alligator in the wild before. So... you can imagine the excitement. The kids enjoyed it. My favorite part was Will telling me he had to potty and I knew the gator was next (and the last animal) so I tried to get him to wait. He eventually got tired of me and stood up then looked at me and said in all seriousness... "I have to potty, Mommy. I just go myself." and tried to leave. It was hilarious in his little Will voice. He said it with such conviction. My other favorite part was when everyone was asked what wild animal in North America kills more people than alligators, snakes, and sharks combined (white tailed deer btw) and Kenzie yelled "Polar Bear!!!" Well, she believed it. After the show everyone was given the opportunity to hold the gator but Kenzie didn't want to do it. I think the line and amount of people were just too much. Will didn't want to either. We are realizing that he is more like Steven and myself than Kenzie ever was. He has some shyness hanging on in there and he gets overwhelmed with a lot of people. We would have been there a while if we waited anyway and we have held gators before so we decided to sit that one out. Nana took the kids over to play with the Legos in the rec center, Papa went to the bar (surprise, surprise), and I went to go get in a run for Global Running Day and the streak on the treadmill. By the time I made it back to the house, Will was down for a nap and sleeping soundly and we decided to turn on Moana for Kenzie (and Nana since she hasn't seen it) while Will napped since it was still raining outside. Then the funniest thing happened. It was like he had some sort of Maui radar. You're Welcome started playing and Will called from the room because he was awake. He sat up in his bed and told me, "I hear Maui." and then started singing You're Welcome with him. We sat around and watched a bit more before running to Publix. Will had a bit of a breakdown (okay, a pretty serious one) in Publix when he wanted to walk through the entire store alone. As in him on one side of the store and me on the other. I wouldn't let him. Cue screaming. Independence seeking and limit pushing toddlers are so much fun. I removed him from the store until he calmed. Thankfully Nana was there so I didn't have to leave a full cart of groceries at the front until I could come back for it. Yeah... I did that with Kenzie once. Once home we finished Moana, which totally made Nana cry. She is so emotional. Dinner was spaghetti. Will had been asking for it for a few days now. We have done really well with saving money and eating in the timeshare as much as possible. I'm pretty proud of us because it would be super easy to just go out for every meal. While dinner was cooking we had a dance party using the toddler station on Pandora. Will's jam (The Wheels on the Bus) came on so he was happy. He gets pretty into it. Dinner was really good. Something about spaghetti that I didn't have to make myself makes it taste better. Haha! After dinner we took an evening dip in the pool. The kids were obviously tired. That became apparent when at about 7:15 or so Will asked to brush his teeth and go to bed. Okie doke then. Sure enough, he fell asleep super fast. I got Kenzie out of the pool after Will was asleep and got her ready for bed. I put her in bed and about 3 minutes later Will called for water. I think I woke him up when I put her in the room. I thought for sure that she would ask for water too when Will did but when I looked over at her I realized she was fast asleep. It only took about 3 minutes. These kids were beat. I'll take it. They are having a good time and going to bed tired but happy which makes me happy. Everyone turned in sort of early because we had plans to go to a Build a Friend (like Build A Bear) thing in the morning fairly early. Not like the kids would let us sleep in at all anyway...
Thursday didn't turn out like we thought it would... but was so much better. We got up early. Will was up at 6am. Kenzie slept until around 7 and we had breakfast. When it was about time, we went down to the rec center to see about the Build a Friend thing and were given some bad news. Apparently with the rain being so bad the day before they had record numbers and sold over $1000 worth of Build a Friend stuff. Bears average about $20 a pop according to the info we had so you can do the math... They sold out entirely. They had to cancel the Build a Friend activity for the day. The lady talking to us said in a year and a half of doing it once or twice a week that has never happened. Kenzie was devastated. We had been building this up all day the day before and she was so excited. When the lady saw Kenzie get so upset she actually got upset herself. She felt terrible. We initially talked about taking the kids to Target and letting them pick a stuffed animal or something but they didn't really want to do that. We stayed in the rec center and let the kids play with the Legos for a while and discussed our options. I found a sale at Build A Bear and decided to see where one was located as some in our area have closed down and let the kids do that. The closest one was the Florida Mall so we packed up the kids and headed that way. When we got to Build A Bear we were greeted by Ms. Paige. The kids were super excited to build their new friends. They each chose an animal. Will chose a brown bear and Kenzie chose a blue bear. Then Ms. Paige took us over to the stuffing machine and each kid helped her step on the pedal to turn on the stuffer and fill their bear. She had them each choose a heart and they did this adorable sequence of steps such as touching their heart to their brains so their new friends would be smart, to their feet so their friends would run with them, and to their bellies so their friends would never be hungry. Then they made a wish, kissed their hearts and put them in their bears. The bears were closed up and the kids took them to the grooming station to make sure they were perfect. Each kid then chose an outfit. Kenzie's is an adorable romper and Will's is a Cars shirt because he is Cars obsessed. I'm totally adding the Dolphins football uniform to Will's birthday list and Kenzie is already asking for shoes for her bear and all of the Disney princess outfits we can find. They then named their bears and printed out birth certificates. Will's is Fluffy and Kenzie's is Cupcake. So cute! We learned that Build A Bears are basically microchipped. They have bar codes in them so that if they are ever lost and someone brings them to a BAB location they can be mailed back to us. They are also provided lifetime health insurance. If they have any "medical" issues we bring them to a BAB store and they can be fixed for free. Surgery is included. Haha! The kids loved every minute of this process and it was so cute! The kids carried their bears the remainder of the day (and still rarely put them down). Before leaving the mall we checked out the play area. This was a newly remodeled one with a lot of interactive video game like things. The kids enjoyed it. The downfall in my opinion was the lack of a wall around the place. Usually our kids are very good about staying in the areas we designate but it's not them that I don't trust. It's other people. I like the short wall around ours that keeps them in and others out. They had fun though. At this point it was lunch time and we knew we wouldn't make it back to the timeshare so we left the mall and stopped at Wendy's. While in Wendy's the rain kicked up a notch so that made driving back after lunch less enjoyable. Both kids insisted on taking their bears into Wendy's and both were feeding them part of their food while we were in there. These bears may never leave their sides. Will had fallen asleep earlier in the day when we were on our way to the mall so we knew he wouldn't nap. Instead when we got back to the house we turned on Tangled so the kids could "rest" some. Plus, when we started it, it was still raining. Nana got super into the movie. To the point that she would shush anyone talking nearby. Needless to say, we ended up finishing it. I managed to make it down to the fitness center when we first started the movie to do my mile for the day. By the time the movie ended, it was so beautiful outside. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. For the first time in a few days. It didn't last long before the clouds came back in but at least the rain seemed to pass over us. The kids played in the afternoon before dinner but they could have used naps. Not that they were being super duper crazy but Kenzie is getting whiny. She is just over doing it and she doesn't nap... ever. So it is catching up to her. Will is being his usual self which includes annoying his sister to no end. Her craziness makes it worse though.What actually made them act normal and calm down with the arguing ended up being some pool time. We let them get in before dinner and then close to dinner we got them out of the pool and dried off. Dinner was super awesome on Thursday too because Steven was able to make it back. He picked up some pizzas on his way to the timeshare and we all had dinner together. The kids were so happy to see him. After dinner they pretty much made him get in the pool with them. Before we knew it, it was time for bed. The kids were beat. They didn't even argue a lot about getting out. Though part of that might have been Steven's presence again. We put Will to bed first and less than 10 minutes later when we put Kenzie in the room we could already hear Will snoring. Kenzie was asleep in just a few minutes as well. Steven left shortly thereafter. He had to go home to deal with the dog. I stayed at the timeshare to be there in case the kids had any issues. With the waking up at night lately and them being in a shared room when one would wake the other if you didn't make it to the room fast enough, it was better for me to stay around. I was exhausted too so we all ended up calling it a night fairly early.
Friday was our last day with my parents in the timeshare. Although they check out on Saturday, this was the final day we stayed. We figured it was pointless to remain for one more night just to have breakfast and then leave since they will go home shortly after that. Steven was able to come back in too. He took off work to be able to spend another day with everyone. Unfortunately, Kenzie woke up kind of iffy again. I went for my mile run at about 6:45 after the kids had gotten up around 6:15 and when I got back, Kenzie felt sick. She ended up doing the same "throwing up" from a couple days prior. So weird. (Warning... TMI Alert) Basically just dry heaving and she spit a lot because of all the saliva in her mouth. She did it about 5 or 6 times over the course of a couple hours and that was it. We still have no idea what it was. Such a weird, weird stomach bug (if that is even what it is/was). Steven made it over shortly after the throwing up episodes. I think he planned it that way. Momma made me an awesome breakfast because she spoils me. The kids didn't eat much but with their tummies acting up... it wasn't surprising. When Steven arrived the kids were in pool already. Steven ran an errand with Joe and then came back for lunch. We all had lunch and put Will down for his nap. Kenzie has been so crazy with her lack of rest time that we decided to let her lay in our bed and watch TV for a while. Since all that was going on, Momma and I ran out to Target. I needed to pick up a new rash guard for Will to go with a suit he has already and Kenzie has grown out of (like majorly too small now) the two suits I was pushing it on from last year so I wanted to get her a one piece because we like those for swimming lessons and she will need a new rash guard for it. We were able to find a one piece but I am still looking for a rash guard. The Target we went to didn't have any in girls sizes. So weird. We also picked up a dress for me for the night we plan to go out to celebrate birthdays in the Keys. When Will woke up from his nap we spent some more lazy time around the house before suiting up the kids and heading over to the kiddie pool at the big pool again. They love that thing. Kenzie went under the "carwash" over and over again. Will got seriously close to it. He liked using the ones that were shooting water up to give himself a back massage. I think if we had another week, he would be going under the carwash thing too. He was definitely considering it. We didn't stay too long because we needed to get ready for dinner. For our last night together we decided on Longhorn. It was really good. The kids were so good in the restaurant too. My favorite part was when the manager complimented Kenzie's flower in her hair (she wore her Moana dress that Nana and Papa gave her for her graduation) and she said thank you. To which the woman responded, "A child with nice manners! You don't see that much anymore." She seemed impressed. Sidenote: We met up with a little girl maybe about 9 in the bathroom that Kenzie said hi to. The little girl replied hi and while most kids would have likely ended there, this little girl then complimented Kenzie's flower too and thanked me when I held the door for her. So, there are others out there. She seemed like a sweet little girl. After dinner we went back to the timeshare to let the kids (and Steven) get in some more pool time. Steven had to get in because someone had to go to the deep end to retrieve the diving toys. Haha! I packed up a lot of our things while he spent some time with the kids and then we got everyone out and loaded up the car. We left around 8pm and both kids were still awake when we got home. I don't think we got them into bed until close to 9pm. They would usually be fine but with all they have had going on, they were exhausted anyway. However, Will was thrown off and he cried and argued about bed for about 30 minutes before he just couldn't do it anymore and went to sleep. It was a long week.
We had a ton of fun this last week. We are super thankful to my parents that share their timeshare space with us to give us a "staycation" and help the kids have a great time. So, after the first full week of summer, we have put a check mark on Staying with Nana and Papa on the bucket list. This weekend we will likely lay low for the most part. On Saturday Steven has to pick his parents up from the airport because we have their car. Steven has to work on Sunday to prep for going to Melbourne on Monday and staying there most of the week. Other than that, we will see. I don't see much going on though. These kids need to relax. This staycation should be relaxing but they never stopped. There was almost always something going on. Also, I want to rest up some before Steven leaves next week because I know that is going to be a more difficult time for me. I've done the week or so at home with the kids while Steven travels before but this is going to be one week right after another AND is the summer so we have a lot going on already. Plus, this is the first time I have done it in a while and now that the kids are older, they can be more demanding. We also have more going on in general. Like dance and swimming lessons. I think I'm tired already. =) This week was so much fun though and I'm glad we were able to make it all work out. It's just what we needed to start our summer. The only thing that would have made it better would have been having Steven around more but we just made every moment he was with us as great as possible. Thank you again to Nana and Papa for being such awesome hosts.
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