Kentucky Splash, the Drive-in movies, Basketball camp, and the 4th of July

A couple of weeks ago we went North to Kentucky Splash.  Kentucky Splash is a water park.  It's about an hour and 15 min away so not too bad.  I was nervous about going because the last day trip was to Big Ridge Park and the day sucked the energy out of me with the hike and heat.  It was a great day but it took me the rest of the week to recover from it.  I was just nervous about driving that far, having to pack a picnic lunch, remember all the towels, sunscreen, etc, and having to keep track of all the kids at the water park.  When the day came I decided it was worth it to go and it ended up being great.  Our friend's met us up there so I didn't have to worry about keeping my eyes on all the kids by myself.  They had enough fun for Piper and the older boys and I enjoyed having someone to talk to.  I actually felt pretty good that day as well so I didn't have to fight through too much nausea.  The only bad things about the day were that I had Will spray my back and he didn't do a great job so my back got a really bad burn and, since Piper had broken my sunglasses (she breaks every pair I purchase), I didn't have sunglasses at all that day and I ended up burning my eye.  It was weird but I came home with a blister on my eye.  I ended up having to wear my glasses instead of contacts all week long so my eye could heal.  Thankfully, it didn't really hurt if I wore my glasses so besides looking gross, it wasn't a big deal.  We had so much fun that I think we might go again at the end of the month for Isaac's birthday.  Next time I'll make sure to have sunglasses and better sunscreen coverage!  

And, I'll make Mike come too!

Last week we were invited to go to the drive-in movies.  It's been a long time since I've gone to a drive-in movie (maybe when I was 16 and my brother took me on my first "date"?) but I have really good memories of the drive-in movie and it seems like such a classic, American, summer activity.  Mike had never been to one!  One of Will's favorite books is The BFG and Isaac had been reading it this summer so that he could go see the movie so it was perfect that the first movie playing was The BFG.  We only stayed for the first movie even though the second movie was Finding Dory because it was such a late night already.  

Also last week was a basketball camp for the boys.  It was a religious sports camp that only charged $20 a kid for the week.  The religious part wasn't that big a deal for the most part.  Each day they all met in the gym where they had a quick, 5 minute devotional.  The kids were encouraged to bring in backpacks to donate for another volunteer organization and each day the coaches passed out paper to kids who wanted to write down prayer requests.  Besides that it was mostly basketball.  They had other sports too but our kids just did the basketball.  The last night we showed up to an interesting program though.  They had a minister speak and he invited people to come down who wanted to accept Jesus as their Savior.  Probably about 20 kids went down.  The adults were crying and hugging and it was a big deal.  Being LDS, it was obviously different than what we are accustomed to but I imagine that is how people feel about us when they come to a fast and testimony meeting.  Here in the South, the day you accept Jesus is a really big day in their lives.  They refer back to that day frequently.  It is the day you were saved so it's a bid deal to them.  I think it might be like our baptism day.  Anyway, watching this happen was very interesting to all of us and we had a good discussion about it on the way home from the camp.  I'm actually glad the boys were able to have the chance to see this.  I think there is benefit to seeing what others believe and why they act the way they do.  The neighbor boy accepted Jesus on Easter so I think this experience helped the boys understand him better.  Also, this experience gave me a greater appreciation not just for the Holy Ghost but for the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  

Last night we celebrated the 4th of July.  I haven't been very good at remembering to take my camera with me this summer so I haven't gotten a lot of pictures of our activities.  I did, however, remember to bring my camera last night.  Our friend's were able to get a suite (the skybox) and invited us and a few other families to the Smokies baseball game.  I haven't been to a professional baseball game since I was 5 and the kids have never been to one.  It was hot and muggy but we were able to enjoy the game from the Air Conditioned room so it was perfect.  They had popcorn, hotdogs, water, and soda.  It started to rain at the beginning so the poor people in the bleachers got wet but we were perfectly dry up in our suite and we enjoyed a perfect rainbow above the stadium.  At the end we got to see fireworks and the kids acted like they'd never seen them before.  They were so excited and shouted and jumped up and down the entire time.  It was perfect.  

It's been a fun summer so far and I think we have just about done everything on our summer list already so I am looking forward to just taking the rest of the month nice and slow.  Which, actually, reminds me that I need to go get some laundry folded...