Lagoon 2017

On Friday, Grig's work took all of its employees and their families to Lagoon (a nearby amusement park). We were pretty excited about it. Grig's last two employers have had an annual Lagoon day, and it's been nice to go for the last four years.

For some reason, Kevin was especially excited about the bumper cars. That was the first thing that he wanted to do. So, we went and ate lunch with Grig's company, and then we headed to the bumper cars. It was super hot, so we were excited to get to the water park portion of the park, but we promised Kevin that he could do the cars first.

We stood in line, and a short time later, Kevin was in his bumper car. He managed to hit a couple other cars, but it took him most of the first time to get the controls figured out, so we decided to let him try one more time.

 He was pretty happy about getting back in the cars, and he eagerly waited in line for his second chance to run his car into other children.

However, something went wrong. The car he was in froze on the side and wouldn't move, no matter how he spun the wheel. His face broke my heart a little. He kept looking to his dad for help, but no matter what he did, the car stayed in the same place. He was so disappointed, so we couldn't help but ask him if he wanted to try again or if he wanted to do a different ride.

 He chose to do a different ride. This time, the ride worked fine and he had a lot of fun.

 Next, we headed over to Lagoon Beach. We put on our swimsuits and rented a locker to keep our stuff in. Then, for the next few hours, we swam and took turns going down waterslides. Kevin loved it. He told us later that the water part was his favorite.

 After a few hours, he was shivering a bit, so we went to try a few more rides. Kevin was a lot braver this year. He tried out a lot of different rides that would have terrified him last year. He even tried a roller coaster.

 He gripped his dad's arm pretty tight, but he said it was really fun, and he wanted to do it again. He also really liked a spinning dragon that went backward and forward. It was pretty fast, but as long as he could grip my arm, he was cool with it. He also liked the rocking pirate ship.

After that, he wanted to go back to the beach area, but it was getting late, so we did a few rides that got us wet instead. I think that was a good choice, since it also began to get colder.

As the day neared its end, Kevin and I went on the carousel while Grig went on a roller coaster. Kevin really enjoyed that. He liked picking his animal to ride, and he immediately wanted to go again. Grig got back about that same moment, and so we switched and I went and rode the roller coaster.

 That was nice. I'd forgotten how much I like the adrenaline rush. It was a pretty mild coaster, but it still made me grin from ear to ear.

 Here is Kevin waiting in line for another turn on the carousel.

 We wanted to go on the ferris wheel before we left, but on the way, Kevin wanted to fly a plane, so we stopped to let him do that.

 He also got to fly a torpedo that came complete with a vibrating gun. He really liked that one too.

 About that point, the cotton from the cottonwood tree seemed to get really bad. We were coughing, sneezing, and gagging. We weren't the only ones, either. We heard people all around us sneezing and coughing.

The cotton helped us decide to leave sooner than we might have otherwise. We actually decided to not do the ferris wheel this time, because the wait was long and the sign on the ride said it could take over 20 minutes. So, about 9:00 p.m., we finally left the park.

A few miles down the road, we saw this:

A whole side of a mountain was on fire. We decided the smoke might have been part of why we were sneezing and coughing so much. It wasn't all that far away from Lagoon. 

It was good we left when we did anyway. The next day we had to get up early to go to my cousin's wedding. If we hadn't left earlier, we would have been really tired the next day. 

We had a lot of fun, and it was nice to spend time as a family away from distractions. 

Grig's medical appointment is tomorrow, so after that we'll hopefully have a better idea of what's going to happen next with foster care. If you want to pray for us, we'd appreciate it.