Happy Birthday, Dad L.!

A couple of weeks late, but better late than never! :)  A few weeks ago we headed to Springfield to celebrate Dad L.’s birthday.  We had birthday dinner and cake & ice cream Friday night, headed to SDC on Saturday, and everyone went to church together on Sunday.  It was a nice long, relaxing weekend for us! 

We did a lot of this (sitting around the table, telling stories and laughing):

Mallorye and Tim came, too, obviously, and Laney was fascinated by Mallorye’s make up.  Obviously she has a lot cooler brushes and such than I do! :)

On Saturday, Josh, Laney, Audrey & I headed to SDC earlier then the rest of the crew, so we could let Laney do some playing before everyone else got there.  She really loves it at “Silver Sollar Dity.”  Unfortunately, for breakfast Saturday morning, she had cinnamon sugar biscuits, a krispy kreme donut, a banana, and some orange juice.  Put that in a 2 year old stomach and then shake it up in a car going up and down on a road through the Ozarks... recipe for disaster!  So, poor Laney ended up getting sick in the car, right before we got to SDC.  We pulled over at a gas station and cleaned up the car seat (thank you, Josh), and changed her clothes.  So she actually spent the day in her emergency clothes from her diaper bag, including some shorts that were a little too big and required a shoe string “belt” purchased at the gas station!  She didn’t have any more trouble with her stomach, though, so I guess it was definitely better than it could have been! :)  We made it to the City eventually!

We had to start off the day at Geyser Gulch, where there are lots of balls to play with, and the water mats!  Lucky Daddy always gets to be the one who runs through the water with her! :)

Love the expression on this one… talk about timing! :)

And, lest you think otherwise, Mommy got plenty wet, too! We went to this part of Geyser Gulch that let’s you shoot water cannons at targets.  What we learned (after we hit the first target) is that hitting the target causes another cannon to shoot at you!  Laney was short enough to hide behind the fence.  I was not!  Oh well, it was 80s and sunny, so being wet felt pretty good!

My big girl, riding rides all by herself!

Lunch at the BBQ place!  This is how Grandma likes it- surrounded by as many of her grandkids as she can manage! :)

The Lost River wound around the BBQ place and the girls loved watching the boats go by with the people screaming and getting wet in them!  They cracked up every time one went by.

Entertainment was not lacking at lunch… this squirrel was very interested in our leftovers!  Dad L. almost got it to come right up to him, but it just wouldn’t do it.  Got pretty close, though!

Kael, trying on Laney’s sunglasses… looks pretty cool! :)

Like father like daughter… sword fighting with Daddy!

Just thought this was cute…

Love that my little girl can sleep anytime, anywhere… gets that from the Banwarts! :)

Our annual picture by the Lost River measuring stick… big enough to ride now!

Hard to believe this was just a year ago!  Amazing how fast she changes!!

And, well, since she was tall enough to ride the Lost River, and she loved watching the boats so much at lunch, we made it our last ride of the day!  I was a little worried, because even though she likes the American Plunge, on the Lost River she isn’t sitting on someone’s lap- she’s strapped into a seat all by herself.  But, she loved it!  Grinned like a maniac the whole time!  Guess we got a little dare devil! :) 

Anyway, it really was a fun trip to SDC, and it was so nice not to have to pack up and leave Saturday night.  We all went to church together on Sunday, then had burgers for lunch.  It’s always fun to get to just hang around and tell stories!

Happy birthday, Dad L.!