Labor Day!

Don't you just hate it when you go to look up a house online - or look up a picture in a yearbook - and it says, "No Photo Available"? Well unfortunately for all time when my kids go to recall Labor Day 2006 that's exactly what they'll find. Here's why: We decided at the last minute to go down to Indy Sunday night and stay at the Holiday Inn where the Caribbean's Cove is located. Since Sunday afternoon I was sitting an open house till 4PM that meant afterwards I was running around my house trying to get everyone packed for the last minute sleepover. I didn't do too bad packing! I managed to pack our entire family of 5 into one single bag for the overnight trip! Not too shabby, eh? OK, so Jason is insisting that I note that HE packed his stuff in the bag and now he's trying to turn it into WE packed all our stuff into 1 bag. Whatever. So anyway we had a wonderful evening jumping on the bed in the hotel. (A tradition we adopted from Aunt Michelle and practice religiously.) We went out to eat at one of the hotel restaurants, which was a little eventful because some of the kitchen staff got into a fight back in the kitchen so we got to listen to it from out in the restaurant. Then we cuddled and watched TV and got ready for bed. It was kinda funny because the hotel messed up our reservation a little. Did you ever watch the Seinfeld episode where he argues with the car rental place and tells them, "So you're good at TAKING the reservation, it's the KEEPING the reservation that you don't do."? Our reservation turned out just like that so we ended up in a room that had one king bed and a "complimentary" roll away bed waiting for us in the room. It's a good thing that the roll away was complimentary because I don't think they could have paid someone to sleep on it. But Jason and I thought - the kids won't care! Kids will sleep on anything. Wrong. Jason went out for a walk while I tried to get the kids to sleep. Let's just say when he came back all the kids were not in the roll away. They were in our bed. Our little princess was the first to point out that it was just too uncomfortable - guess she felt the pea. So we did like any good parents would do. We waited till they were all asleep and then put them in the roll away. But then it's the funniest thing. Next thing I know I'm waking up the next morning and all the kids are back in our bed and lo and behold - what the? - I'm in the roll away by myself! I think I must have decided that it was too crowded during the night and picked lumpiness over toes in my nose. Monday we went for breakfast then headed to the indoor water park. It was awesome! I wish we would have caught on film their simultaneous "WWOOOOWWW" when we walked in. Oh yeah, the lack of pictures. While WE were frantically packing I looked everywhere for the new digital camera that I had just used the other day - but it was nowhere to be found! It was mystifying! So I went to grab the video camera and realized that I had forgot to plug it in so it didn't have enough battery power. So the weekend was left to be captured by the recesses of our minds. Back to the story- the water park was wonderful! It had a big kid's area that was really shallow and filled with water falling, spraying all around, and a big ship sort of thing in the middle with a huge wooden bucket over the whole thing. Water continually poured into the gigantic wooden bucket and when it got so full it would start to ding to let you know it was about to tip. So all the kids would run around to the side where it poured out and then there would be a beautiful sounding gleeful scream as the giant bucket would pour TONS of water over all the children standing below. Then over on the other side there was a lazy river where you could float around through it in inter tubes. And if that wasn't fun enough there were huge tubes above that made the biggest water slides that I've seen. There was one yellow slide that was big enough that you could fit a double inter tube in - that's the one we took Grace and Will down several times. Then there was a green tube and a blue tube that you just sat down and slide down on your own. We decided the kids weren't quite ready for that yet. It's a good thing because Jason decided to try them out. He started with the blue tube. When he got down he came to me and said it was absolutely terrifying! He said the entire slide it was pitch black! You were sliding down at a high rate of speed, being bumped all around, and the whole way you couldn't see a thing. I'm so glad we didn't send Will down that!!! He said the green wasn't quite as bad - but still a little too much for the kids. So the whole day we enjoyed playing and laughing and having the greatest time. Much to the kids' dismay we eventually had to leave. It was the funniest thing. We were home settling down for the night and I was mumbling how disappointed I was that I hadn't found the camera. I was trying to convince everyone that I was absolutely sure that I had laid it on the bar when just by chance I glanced up at the bookshelf. It was on the very top of the bookshelf! I can barely reach the top of the bookshelf! That's when the kids said, "Oh yeah, the babysitter put it there the other night because she caught us playing with it." I had found it one hour after we had returned home. Well there is one picture that will make me think of this weekend. This is the picture I found on the camera when I turned it on.

http://www.caribbeancovewaterpark.com