Back on track

I took a little internet break over the week/end to enjoy Dave's birthday weekend with him, and get everything done that we needed to. I'll get e-mails returned and blogs read sometime this week :)

We had such a fun weekend. Dave was very surprised at his surprise party. He stood in shock inside the doorway for the first minute trying to figure out why so many of his friends and family were standing in my parents' house yelling, "SURPRISE!!" It was fun talking with him after the fact to let him in on the little lies we had to tell to keep him from finding out. We had about 30 people there for the surprise, and a few people stayed until the wee hours of the morning playing Rock.band (okay 1:00 am, but I'm old and that now feels like the wee hours of the morning). It was so much fun, and we had pretty much the best band ever.

Saturday and Sunday we were pretty worthless, and besides churchs, spent the days melted on to our respective couches with short periods of letting Gus and Porter (dog sitting for Nikki and Aaron) out for potty breaks, or yelling for them to quit barking/howling at each other. We watched a movie, and prepared the lunches for Valleyfair Day yesterday!!

Jon and Rick on drums and guitar

Valleyfair was AWESOME. It was just as fun as I've always remembered it to be. We went on as many rides as possible, and stayed there from 10:30 until 7:00. Dave's favorite new ride is the Extreme Swing, which scared the papoopie out of me - I am a big fan of shoulder harnesses and this one did NOT have them! My new favorite ride was Steel Venom. Incredibly fast and loud and fast and dangly feet and fast. LOVED it (probably because I was in a shoulder harness for that ride). Torro (my dad) lost his phone, pocket knife and some change on that ride and I lost my sunglasses on another ride. The good peeps of VF were gracious enough to retrieve our goods for us. I think they have special people who just do that all day long. Maybe they should have just followed our crew around.

I think one of my favorite parts of the day was watching our nephews walk around the park in total awe of that place. We had all split up to ride different things, but then ran into our 5-year old nephew and his dad (Dave's brother) while in the water park, so the 4 of us went on the group water ride. It was so fun!! My favorite line of the day was while we were starting out on that ride. My nephew yelled out (with a panicked look on his face), "If I throw up while I'm on this ride..." And his dad yells, "You aren't going to throw up, don't worry!" He gets some motion sickness, and Dave and I have experienced the results of his motion sickness firsthand. He ended up having a fantastic time on that ride (and not throwing up), and told me that was his favorite ride of the day! I'm sore today from all of the walking and thrill rides, but it was a super fun weekend!

The birthday boy himself (pretending to be surprised)

The birthday crew (at Picnic Cove)

Carissa and I on the Monster (I love that ride!) Aaron enjoying jello yum yums with Nikki