Friday, August 8, 2008

Kings Island, the zoo and the pool - oh my!


Well it has been a busy week here. We didn't take a family vacation this year because of a lack of funds and an excess of debt. So instead we decided to take a series of "mini vacations" closer to home. We visited COSI (the Center of Science and Industry) in Columbus where my parents live - lots of fun!! And we got in free because we decided to join Museum Center (home of the Children's Museum) here in Cincinnati and there is some kind of a reciprocal membership arrangement with those 2 museums (and many more around the country). The challenge of course was balancing doing things that Matthew would enjoy with doing things that the older kids would enjoy. All in all, everyone seemed to have fun. Ok, Matthew kinda melted down at the end because he was tired. So while the other 3 were outside with my parents exploring the Machines exhibit and climbing on things like bulldozers, I took him to ride the glass elevator (that was the only thing he wanted to do then). We rode up and down probably 8 times! And when we finally got off, he jammed his finger in the door. I didn't realize how badly it was hurt until I saw all the blood dripping down his hand. Poor kid. After that, we just packed up and headed back to Cincinnati.

We've been to the Children's Museum here in Cincinnati a couple times this summer. I must have amnesia or short-term memory loss or something because doing that alone with 4 kids is always a challenge for me but I never seem to remember that from one time to the next. I lost several of the kids a couple of different times. It is a large place with tons of places to play. So my 4 kids tend to run off in different directions in spite of my threats. Fun for the kids; stressful for the mom.

So this week we did more fun stuff. We left Matthew (our youngest) with a friend for the day and went to Kings Island. The older 3 kids had never been there before. They of course loved it! And they were so excited about the rides and characters and everything that they didn't complain more than once or twice about being hot and/or tired. Their kids' area is Nickelodeon themed and the kids were thrilled to see their favorite tv shows come to life as rides and meet some of the characters. Sadly their favorite is SpongeBob Squarepants-a show I really don't like! But they had fun and I really did too!

That was Monday. Tuesday I spent laying around trying to recover from Monday. Wednesday we went with my best friend and her 4 kids to the zoo (where we also have a membership). That also involved a lot of walking. That was a tougher day because our zoo is NOT FLAT-there are hills everywhere. So we got home 4 hours later, hot and exhausted. And the kids wanted to goto the pool. They'd been bugging me for several days and I had promised them we could go. Ugh. So we ended up at the pool for a couple hours later that day. But after all that I still managed to get my weightlifting in that day too since we were at the YMCA pool!!!! Yeah me!! So Thursday was another day of laying around recovering from a busy active day. I didn't do housework all week.

I think I'm making progress with my big goal of losing weight and getting into shape though. At the zoo and Kings Island, I didn't eat lots of high-fat junky food. And I did better walking around than I would've a year ago. On the way home from Kings Island, my husband asked me how much I hurt. Everything from his knees on down was completely sore he said. Me? Well my feet hurt but I still had some energy. I had worn my new crocs which weren't broken in so that's probably why my feet hurt. (boy those shoes are SO comfortable!)

Yeah me! I may not be losing as much weight as I'd like. But I am slowly changing my thinking and I am definitely in better shape! Phil and I talked about getting in shape and whatnot. He wants to start exercising and getting in shape, but said he is not willing to change his diet and eating habits at all. So I'm on my own. Sigh. I'm fairly certain that he won't start exercising either. He is great at having ideas and then not following through on them. And since he's talked about wanting to exercise before and still doesn't, I'd imagine that I'm on my own with exercising too. Hopefully I can at least influence my kids.

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