Sick again

Ugh. I think we had one week with no one sick. A week and a half ago Alex ran a fever for about four days with a nasty cough. Since then his fever went away, but the cough remains, plus he now has the snotty nose. And he has passed the cough on to me - I had no voice for a couple days last weekend since the yuck developed into bronchitis. Now Jim has the cough too.

The only one who is not sick is Grace, and she desperately wants to be. Lots of fake coughs and attempts to get me to give her some orange Triaminic allergy medicine, which she loves the taste of.

I don't know how families with more than two kids deal with it - they must be sick all the time. Care to comment on this siblings?

Girl version of bodily function discussion

Grace had a little bout of gas after her bath today. Here was our discussion:

Julie: Grace, did you just toot?

Grace: Excuse me. It was a white toot.

Julie: A white toot?

Grace: Most toots are black, but this one was white. It's like a ribbon. You know, little like a ribbon.

So now you know.

Proof that Alex actually has some friends of his own. This picture was taken by my friend Jackie at playgroup at the park last week. Laurie's husband pointed out that what we've got here is a classic band photo - looks like we're ready for that album cover. 

This photo cracked me up. Looks like I've got Alex locked up in some sort of playground prison and won't let him out. 

Big girl now

Grace is having her first sleepover tonight. Thank you Gramma and Grandad. For the longest time she resisted the idea of a sleepover once she discovered that it meant that Mama does not come along. But just a couple months ago she started talking about how she wanted to have a sleepover at Gramma and Grandad's house by herself. So tonight we all went up to Gramma Lu's for dinner (and yummy margaritas for us older ones), and afterward Grace and her suitcase went with the grandparents. 10pm now and no call about any freakouts, so hopefully all is well. She has the added incentive of pancakes and bacon tomorrow morning, so I'm sure that helped keep her happy.

Six Flags!!!

What a fun weekend. As former employees, Kathy and I were invited to attend the opening day ceremonies at Six Flags on Saturday to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the park. And even better, we could bring our families along for free too (a $120 savings just for me, Jim and Gracie). So Kathy came up with her family, and we headed over, dropped Alex off with the grandparents (thank you!) and all went to the park.

Now the drawback was that in order for us to get in free we had to be assembled at the employee entrance by 8:30am. The park doesn't open until 10am, so it was an agonizing 1 1/2 hour wait, explaining to Grace that we can't go on any rides because they aren't running yet. We sat through some speakers (the voice of Ameriquest Field Chuck Morgan, Miss Texas, Tom Vandergriff, some Dallas Cowboy), the Hardin-Simmons Cowboy band (yeehaw - love those guys!), and a cheesy dance number by some of the Six Flags show people. But once we finally got to go in the wait was worth it. There was virtually no line for any ride all day. And the weather was awesome; probably got to the mid-70s, and slightly cloudy.

Poor Grace was so excited about going, but unfortunately had been running a low fever since Wednesday. But we took her anyway and are glad we did. We got stuck having to carry her a lot because she would get wiped out. But she had such a great time with her cousins all day, not to mention the rides she got to go on. A couple of rides didn't go over too well - if you have small kids DO NOT go on the Spongebob "4-D" ride. And she said the Conquistador "made her tummy hurt", and I think the Cave ride just creeped her out. But all the other ones she rode seemed to go over great. And she really liked my two former haunts - Chapparell (Old Time) Cars and the Log Ride.

Grace was a trooper and lasted until about 4:30pm (the park closed at 6pm). That was pretty good considering we left our house at 7am and got to the park a little after 8am. And then we got to have a fun dinner all together with Mom and Dad and Grandma Lu.

Now every time we drive by the park on the way to Ft. Worth, Grace can point out the tower and say that she's been on it. It's so much fun doing things for the first time with your kids. Hopefully they'll give all the former employees a free ride again in five years for the 50th anniversary; then both kids will be old enough to have a great time.

What fun to meet Tweety Bird first thing in the morning.

Kids swing ride. Note that Max's feet dragged the ground the whole time. It wasn't too fun, but unfortunately Grace was too small to go on the real swing ride. 

Grace's first bumper car ride. She takes after her mommy - we both don't think they are fun at all because you get stuck and can't get your car to go where you want. 

Cousins on the bumper cars. 

This is the only shot I got of Emma on our camera (and I didn't get any of either Jim or David). Poor Emma was the only one who was over 52 inches. Meant she could ride any ride in the park EXCEPT some of the littler kid rides with everyone else. She just had to watch. 

Kathy on the tower. She and I got these tshirts and wore them and our nametags around all day (I swear we weren't the only ones doing that). It was pretty cool seeing all the other former employees, even if I didn't know any of them. 

Poor sick Grace. Exhausted by the end of the day.