This has been an active few days for the kids! We start our day with the breakfast of champions……cupcakes?

Actually, they are healthy banana muffins with Nutella frosting. At least the bottom part is good for you! This was Ashley’s breakfast, but she had some issues…

Once they were all fed, they needed something to do. Kayla has been wanting to go rock wall climbing for a while, but it turns out that our local wall will not be open until fall (if even). A little web searching found that Gurnee park district has a rock wall and only charges non-residents $1 per person to climb for as long as you want! So the girls and I popped over yesterday for some climbing. They both made it to the top to ring the bell, and climbed for 45 minutes until their little fingers gave out. Both kids are a teeny bit sore today. I gave it a try too, but my arms were super tired from lifting weights in the morning and gave out (I don’t have super strong arms anyway).

Today, Kayla has a sleep over party at her friend Abby’s house. Abby moved to Wisconsin last summer, so she left at 2PM with another friend to go north across the cheddar curtain (I am on pick-up duty tomorrow afternoon). Since we just had Ashley, we took her to do something she has really been wanting to do – the DareDevil Dive at Six Flags.

Here they are loading up…

And walking to the platform.

And getting hooked up to the cables.

And flying!

After she was done flying…

In case you are wondering why she looks wet, there was a teeny cloud that passed overhead.

It rained for 5-10 minutes, and then the sun is back out. Just long enough for us to get wet!

Kayla had no desire to try the dive, but Ashley was all for it! She had to think for a minute when I asked her if she would do it again, but she said “yeah”. Wonder where she got the adrenaline junkie gene?  (Hint: NOT FROM ME!)

First and foremost – Happy Birthday Grampa Dusty!

The last few weeks have been super busy, and so I have a bunch of pictures and stories to share. I will split it into two posts – one for the last few weeks and then just this past weekend.

Kevin had training in Vegas from June 9th to the 14th. While he was gone, the girls started their Mommy Boot Camp training. That week, we worked on cooking in the kitchen. One night while he was gone, Kayla made burgers for dinner. I coached her through forming the patties, pressing the dent in the middle, putting them under the broiler, and then flipping & checking. Her first try turned out good, don’t you think?

Another night later on, Ashley took a filet of flounder cut into 6 pieces. She mixed the crumbs for the breading and put them into the oven. Kayla followed the recipe for corn muffins (even scaled it to the right amount) and baked us buttermilk corn muffins to go with the fish. Here are the results:

The girls had really missed their Daddy, so they drew a welcome home sign that covered the entire driveway!

Can you guess the artist for this one…..

We have a goal this summer to try and get the most out of our season passes to Great America, so we have been inviting friends to use the special passes we have to get in other people for $15 or less each. Last week, we brought a colleague of mine from work and her son. It gave me a chance for some pictures too!

When you get to the park when it opens, you are the only one on a ride! Kayla is on the far left next to my work friend. Funny science thing: this ride is supposed to spin around, but the two of them did not have enough weight to get more than one spin!

Lunch time! We keep costs down by packing a lunch in a cooler. We then picnic right outside the gates and head back into the park when we are done.

Nothing like a spin on Viper to get that lunch settled in! The girls are the second to last row.

It was pretty hot that day, so Roaring Rapids was next on the agenda. I didn’t need to be wet.

And a final picture before heading home!

For details about this past weekend, see the next post!