July 11, Summer day 40, Staycation day 5

Today was a little more relaxed than the rest of the week has been.  We slept late, had breakfast & then went to get Larry, Samuel & Savannah's hair cut.  You can see why Samuel needed it in the picture of his bedhead a couple days ago.  Savannah's layers had long since grown out & needed a trim and well....Larry has never actually NEEDED a haircut in his life, but he likes his hair pretty short, so the moment he needs a comb to fix it, he starts fretting that it's getting too long & runs for a haircut.  :::sigh:::  Whatever.

Our plan was to go to the movies, stopping at a gas station on the way to pick up some candy.  We have NEVER done that before (hiding candy & sneaking it in), but we were trying to cut costs & thought we could let the kids each pick out a candy from the gas station on the way.  However, when we got to the gas station, 2 of my 3 kids got really, really, really upset that we were intentionally breaking the rules.  They were to the point of tears that we were going to "break the movie laws" and since they were so convicted about it, we apologized to them about trying to convince them to do something that we know is wrong & chose to leave the candy at the gas station.  Instead, we drove through McDonald's & got $1 double cheeseburgers for each of us to fill our bellies before the movie & then got popcorn to share and a drink at the theater.  We still spent less than if we'd let everyone get candy & a drink and it was better for them anyway.  We all REALLY enjoyed the movie, Wall-E.  It was a very sweet family movie.

After the movie, we came home & took a nap before eating supper & heading to Faulker Park (http://www.cityoftyler.org/Default.aspx?tabid=223) to visit their splashground area.

It is a series of pipes that pour water, buckets that fill up & dump over your head, sprinkler heads that spray up at your body in sporadic patterns, water "cannons" that you can fire at your family & friends.  It was so much fun!  The kids did it alone for a while because Larry & I spotted a little girl who was in Sarah's class last year (& she was in Kourtney's class the year before).  We ended up talking to her parents & watching all the kids from the sidelines for quite some time before the kids came and got me & drug me in.  I couldn't convince Larry to get in the water with us, but I did manage to give him a big ol' wet hug!  :)

Here's Savannah behind the red arch, covering her eyes.

And Miss Sarah, splashing her feet in the puddles of water.

Samuel shooting the water cannon...likely at one of his sisters.

I love the look on Chelsea's face (our little friend from school).  She was right under one of the buckets & had just gotten showered when I clicked this photo.  My girls are on the left, talking about how to hit Samuel with the water cannon.

The kids loved this spout of pouring water!  Here's Samuel getting doused.

...and Savannah!

When they were done getting soaked (& convincing me to come join their wet playtime!), we moved over to the playground, which sits right beside the splashground.

They climbed...

...and climbed some more.

They spun in circles on these crazy little chairs that were hard to get stopped.

Samuel conquered the mountain.

It seems that climbing was our theme tonight.  ha ha!

Savannah finally wore out & came to sit on the bench with Larry and I.

We attempted a self-portrait, but it didn't work out too well.  It's always hard to tell whether or not you got everyone's faces in the shot.

So Savannah took a picture for us.  She insisted that we pose like this.  And at the last minute, Larry blew a raspberry instead of kissing me.  LOL!

Ahhhh!  It was a relaxing day.  Tomorrow's staycation plans include a whole lot of hanging out at home, resting....oh, and folding a TONNNNNNNN of laundry!  We're going to a party tomorrow evening, but other than that, we're not doing much of anything.  What a great week it's been.  We do have one last thing on Sunday afternoon.  I'll tell you about it then.

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