spontaneous trip

As Labor Day approached, we had zero plans and it was a little bit disheartening.  Kevin rarely gets time off, so it seemed a bit of a shame that we didn't have fun plans to look forward to.  I casually mentioned that maybe we should drive down to Waco to check out the Hawaiian Falls down there, and everyone thought that seemed like a pretty good idea!  With our season passes, we have access to all five Hawaiian Falls waterparks in the area, so it seemed like a no-brainer.  Kevin also had points on hotels.com, so we made a weekend out of it :)

This was probably the most spontaneous weekend trip we've ever done, so we woke up Saturday morning, packed our bags, dressed in our swimsuits, and made the two hour drive to Waco.  

As we were pulling into the parking lot, we saw a dad spank his kid pretty hard, and Kevin made some comment like, "Wow, did you see that? I guess in Waco, when you don't listen to your parents, you get spanked."  He was trying to be funny, but it totally impacted Colby because he held my hand the whole time and was super attentive to all my instructions, haha.  It's so funny even typing this.  We have never spanked our kids, but apparently even the thought of it was frightening to Colby.  During the day, Brooke was complaining about something, and Colby asked me if Brooke was going to get spanked.  I told him that she wasn't, but that she needed to stop complaining. I told Colby that Daddy didn't ever spank them, and he immediately said, "But in this world, you get spanked."  Hahaha, I guess by world he meant city, and it was all just so funny.  I told Kevin that he had scared Colby for life, which maybe wasn't a bad thing to keep him in line, haha.  

We had a blast together, especially since this waterpark had different rides than the one in Mansfield.  Our family favorite was this mat slide, pictured behind the kids.  It started as a tube slide, which was super fun and added a whole other element to the fun. 

Brooke was also tall enough to ride this body slide that you laid on your back and went almost straight down.  I was actually really surprised that she was brave enough to try it, so I agreed to go with her.  I had the biggest wedgie at the bottom, so I quickly fixed it and stood up.  When I looked over at Brooke, she was cracking up.  She jumped up from the slide and said, "I have to tell you something in a minute."  As we walked away, she was cracking up and said, "Mom, my swimsuit went all the way in my bum."  Hahaha, I explained that it was called a wedgie and we were both cracking up.  It was a simple moment, but so fun to be having such a silly moment together. I love my big girl so much!!

We stayed till they closed at 6, and as we walked out of the park, Brooke said, "I wish we could come back tomorrow.  Wait, can we come back tomorrow?"  The next day was Sunday, and although we would never normally go to Hawaiian Falls on a Sunday, we told her we would think about it since we were technically on a little weekend getaway.

We grabbed some Chipotle and headed to our hotel, which is always exciting when you're a kid!  They loved playing on the beds, checking out the room, and eating dinner while we watched a show.

Kevin and I thought about checking out the Magnolia Silos, since that's such a big draw for people, but we found out that they weres closed on Sunday!  We justified going back to Hawaiian Falls, and the kids were ecstatic. After we scanned our season passes, I had the quick thought that I should see if somebody in the line wanted to use our extra buddy passes we never used.  I walked up to a family of 3 at the ticket counter and asked if they had already purchased their tickets.  They said that they were just about to pay, so I handed them 3 free buddy passes and they were shocked.  They expressed their gratitude, and it was so fun to be able to gift random strangers with free passes :)  As I started to walk away, I looked again in my bag and found one more buddy pass, and a rainy day ticket that we got when my Mom was with us.  More people were walking towards the entrance, so I asked if anyone would like a free pass.  A woman quickly raised her hand, and I handed her the two passes.  Again, she was SO grateful, and I was feeling great, haha.  The tickets are $27 each, so we were able to save those people a lot of money. It made the day that much more enjoyable to me :)

It was another great day, and we made sure to hit up all the kid's favorite spots: the rainbow mat slide, miniature golf, and the wave pool.

Oh, and we checked out the splash pad that we hadn't made it to the day before.  The kids LOVED this area, and I loved seeing their smiles as they ran from one water feature to the next.  (I had to go back to our bag to get my phone because I needed a picture of their sweet faces,)

After a few hours of fun, we put on dry clothes and made the drive back home, with a little detour to check out a lake that Kevin was interested in.  He's always scheming about having a lake house one day, and he had a few lots in particular to look at.

Monday (Labor Day), was spent at the lake, but it was quite a different trip than normal.  Jerry had taken the boat out on Saturday and was surprised that the bilge pump kept coming on.  He wasn't sure why it was doing that, so as we puttered out to the middle of the lake, Kevin started opening compartments and trying to figure it out.  Within moments, he found a heater hose that had a crack in it and super hot water was spraying out of it at a rather alarming rate.  We quickly went back to the slip, and started pulling stuff out of that back compartment.  Everything was wet, and as we opened up additional compartments, we kept finding more water.  It took us about two hours, but we finally had everything out, wiped down, and hanging to dry.

During that time, these two were playing puppy and who knows what else, haha.  I love seeing their imaginations at work, and that they can play so well together for long periods of time. I think it's every parent's wish, but I truly hope that they can stay close forever!

As we were leaving the marina, one of the kids had to go potty SO bad, so we had to rush over to the  marina store.  After both kids used the restroom, Colby said, "I know it's inappropriate, but can we sit on those bum chairs."  Hahaha, I guess!

This picture cracks me up, and I'm sure we'll laugh about it for years to come!