Because we had such a wonderful time at Splash Universe, the indoor water park in Shipshewana, Indiana, we decided to take the kids to Splash Bay, another indoor water park, this one in Maumee (Toledo), Ohio.  Again, we had a blast!  Following is a summary of both parks.  To abbreviate, I’m going to call Splash Universe in Indiana “IN” and Splash Bay in Ohio “OH”.

Water Slides:  LARGE: IN has 2 large water slides that you travel down in inner tubes (though they are essentially the same slide – same design), while OH has 3 large ones and only one of those is for inner tubes.  I personally prefer very tame water slides, so my favorites are the tube slides.  The other 2 water slides at OH are much bigger, but the blue one pushed me underwater at the end, and the red one is one of those “toilet bowl” ones – the slide opens out into a huge bowl or funnel, and the rider drops down through the middle into a swirling 7.5 foot deep whirlpool – no thanks.  Not for me nor my little ones, but my husband and my daughter’s teenage friend really liked it, and we enjoyed watching them from the balcony outside the snack bar where you could see into the bowl and watch them drop.  MEDIUM SLIDES: IN had many more smaller water slides – kind of like playground slides in water.  OH had a few, but more on those in the kids’ play area section.  SMALL SLIDES: IN had 2 tiny slides in a small baby area, perfect for my 2-5 year olds.  OH did not have any baby slides.

Swimming Area:  There was not much room for swimming in the IN water park.  Off of the lazy river, there is a little pool with a bench around the perimeter for families to sit, but not really anywhere for anyone to swim – something I found quite strange for a water park.  At OH, the kids’ play area has a bit of extra room for swimming in 2 places, although the depth is only 3 feet – better than no swimming at all though!  Neither place has a pool exclusively for swimming, however, nor my favorite water park element – the wave pool.

Kids’ Area:  Both parks have a large water playground for kids where they can squirt each other with various contraptions and go down slides and stuff.  Both places also have a zero-depth entry pool with a soft floor, which is great for really small kids getting ready to crawl and walk.  Both parks also  have a Lily Pad Crossing, where kids can use overhead ropes to help them cross a path of stepping stones across a pool – this was really popular with my 9-year-old daughter and her 6-year-old boy cousin.  OH also has a really cool “shark” – a piece of playground equipment that is bolted to the floor of a 3-foot pool.  The kids can try to climb on the shark, the adults can try to shake them off and even climb on it themselves – the thing was really popular among guests of all ages.  OH also has a basketball hoop and floating balls which was a lot of fun for Hubby and me – providing we could get a long enough break from the kids to play a game.  Overall, I liked the OH kids’ area much better, but my husband liked the IN one better for just one reason – the 500-gallon tipping water bucket!

Lazy River:  In an indoor water park, lazy rivers are basically moats that carry an inner tube rider around the room.  I really enjoy these, even though  indoor ones are slightly less cool than outdoor ones, just because they can’t get very long nor travel very fast.  The OH one was accessible directly after the water slides, and this was a pretty cool design, but the OH one was not very fast – I really enjoyed the feeling of getting swept down the river in certain parts of the IN lazy river.  It was really fun to try to time our trip down the lazy river so that we would meet up with the kids after a trip down the slide.

Hot Tubs: The hot tub at IN is adults only, and we never made it over there.  That reminds me, the temperature in the IN water park was always very warm – TOO warm when entering while wearing street clothes.  In contrast, the OH park is actually kept kind of chilly for my taste, and the water wouldn’t really warm up until a few hours before the park closed at night.  My kids were often cold in the regular water at OH.  But the OH hot tub was my favorite part of the entire park.  It was incredibly relaxing, and there was even a waterfall you could sit under.  AND, you could swim outside!  The weather was somewhere in the mid-70’s, so it was beautiful to sit outside in the hot tub, tucked in kind of a hidden corner just off the expressway where you could watch cars pay their toll and go about their days, but they couldn’t see you unless they knew better than to take a peek under the water slides.  And that’s another thing – since the water slides go out of the building, you can sit in the hot tub and see water sliders travel  above – we would have our daughters and their friend put their hands against the water slide and wave to us; it was so fun!

In Summary:  For me personally, I preferred the OH  water park over IN, just because I liked the hot tub a lot and even though they only had one tube slide, it was a really great slide!  I liked the more open areas for swimming and the basketball court OH provided, and I loved watching my daughters try to conquer the shark.  IN was fun for other reasons, especially having fun with a larger group of family, but if we’re just talking about attractions, then I definitely prefer Splash Bay near Toledo OH.  I don’t think I can get an unbiased answer if I ask my kids – what could beat being at an indoor water park with their grandparents, cousin, aunt and uncle and great uncle all at once?

By the way, don’t ask for pictures.  If you think I was going to take our camera into any place with all that water, you must not know about my uncanny ability to lose and/or destroy cameras!

Yahoo!  The Bombers finally have done something they have failed to do all season: completed a sweep of the rather lackluster (of late) Red Sox.  The first time the Yanks have taken a four-game home stand from their rival since 1985?! The one thing I grew sick of is the continuous mentioning of David Ortiz and his possible enhancement taking of 2003.  I mean, it seems as if (the last two games, anyway) that the games were more of a did he or didn’t he.  I think the whole scandal has gotten way out of hand and is ruining the great American pasttime.

The series began Thursday night with a 13-6 blow.

The excitement continued Friday night into the wee hours of Saturday until Alex Rodriguez smashed a two run walk-off shot in the bottom of the 15th inning.  Marking the first time a Yankee-Red Sox game  has gone scoreless  through  14 innings and only the fifth time in recorded history  that  a walk-off homer has been hit in  a scoreless 15 or more inning game.  A heartbreaker but the pinstripes came out on top.

Saturday, the Yankees also blanked the Sox 5-0

Finally, the first place AL East boys rallied to go up 6-1/2 games with a 5-2 victory.  One thing is for sure, Boston will be looking for blood when next the teams meet up.  But for now.. good luck to justj‘s beloved Tigers when they travel to Fenway Monday night.

I received a few more of the email forwards with  pictures of cute animals, so I thought I’d combine them into one post.  So here are some cute animals – enough said.

That little parakeet is preening his smiling kitten buddy – something birds only do to the ones they love!  And these pandas were displaced when an earthquake shook their forest home, but they’re getting good care now.  What I wouldn’t give to sit right in the middle of that pen!

And, for the finale, check out this cat who loves boxing!

Tonight was my monthly turn as worship leader at church. It seems like there have been a few songsters added to the roster making it seem like a longer stretch between turns. As usual, it went just fine with only one major goof… not musical.  Opening song: “Gather Us In” went well an old favorite, but good to start things off with.  The responsorial psalm had the same words as the offertory hymn but different melodies, but both versions of “Taste and See” went well.

THEN, came communion! We usually need to sing two songs to fill the time.  I announced the first song: #303 “Where Charity and Love Prevail.”  HOWEVER, what Dolores’ introduction was definitely NOT for “Where Charity and Love Prevail.”  Instead, she had the second song “At that First Eucharist” up.  So we sang that and then I announced that NOW we will sing “Where Charity and Love Prevail.”

The closing song, “Go, Be Justice” was a song that was unfamiliar to me until I heard the melody which was familiar but I could not place and still cannot.  I think it curious that many hymns have the same melody but different words   DeeDee and I both agreed that if anyone complained we would gladly let them come up and take our places next time.  Somehow, I did not hear a word.

Yesterday was gong to be a huge catch-up-around-the-house day for me; I had big plans – unpack the suitcase from our unwillingly shortened venture earlier in the week (my son has decided to be the first one of our kids who doesn’t travel well.  He won’t sleep away from home, and he cries in the car – not cool for a family fond of road tripping), catch up on my email, and read and write some blog posts, among other things.  I got through the email and caught up on my fellow tangents bloggers posts (this task was made especially easy since one of us has seemingly disappeared), but I never got around to writing any posts of my own.  Time just slipped away from me yesterday; everything seemed to take forever.  I had a huge shopping to do at my favorite place (bold represents sarcasm) Walmart.  I was so tired that I got to the store and was waiting in the customer service line before I realized that I had forgotten the credit card at home – ugh.  At least I only had one kid with me to reload into  the car, otherwise it would have taken even longer.

Aside from the busyness and the fact that I should go to bed earlier but never will, I’ve been sleeping much better lately – that Claritin is a life-saver!  Still can’t get a cat though – we took the kids to the Humane Society the other day (just looking – we actually left without a new pet, hmmm, don’t think that’s ever happened before!), and I just gazed at a cat and sneezed; I didn’t even touch it!  What a shame because our friends have 2 litters of teeny tiny adorable farm kittens right now!  But back to why I was so tired that everything took forever yesterday.  My husband was asked to review the local community theater’s youth production for the newspaper, so we took the kids (minus Sir Climbs A Lot) to see the show.  Well, shows, actually, the turnout was so great for the youth theater this year that there were actually two plays.  And a few of our game night friends were involved, so it was fun to see them on stage.  But by the time we got home and got the kids settled down to start writing the review, it was past 11:00!  And because the turnout for youth theater was so great (which is an awesome thing), we had 37 kids to mention in the review.  And here’s the doozy – 37 kids to mention and no program!  There was an error at the printing company, and the programs were not ready for our special dress rehearsal pre-screening on Thursday night.  The director made us a partial cast list, but it still took awhile to figure out who was who enough to write a review.  Luckily, the kids had done a nice job and the shows were adorable, so some of it was easy writing, so we were chugging along (well, I was playing a video game since Hubby was chosen to write the review and needed my computer, but I was helping) when all of a sudden, something comes FLYING into our living room.  And no, it wasn’t the usual parade of kids – I mean flying literally.  It was a displaced wild bat (we have pet rats, not a pet bat – yet), and it was flying panicked around our living room.  I’m not afraid of bats, but it was a sudden thing to happen at 1ish in the morning, so I cowered next to my husband until it left the room.  I was really afraid it would fly into the halogen lamp – I’ve smelled the roasting bugs that became victims of the halogen; a bat in there would leave quite a mess, poor thing.  So anyway, now we had to locate the bat and show him the door.  In case you’re reading this and you’re horrified and re-thinking any future visits to our house, be assured that like fellow rural NW Ohio older homeowners (wait, I said that wrong – I’m not old, the house is!) we’ve had a bat in the house before.  And like the previous occurrence, this one was captured without incident and returned to the wilderness.  But first, we had to build a bat relocation contraption and stumble around on chairs at 1:30 in the morning trying to catch the thing.  But we managed, and he happily flew away when released outdoors, and it was still before 2 in the morning.  But my poor tired husband still had to finish that review – which is where I got my post title; I can’t believe that bat interfered with my sleep cycle!  All was said and done and we were both asleep just before 3, followed by a busy (and forgetful) Friday with a game night which led to another late night.  Yawn.  So why am I sitting here blogging instead of napping?  Oh yeah – 4 kids = no napping.

AHHH, Chicago… great band that saw its heyday in the 1980s, but this is not about one of their signature songs.

My tale begins nearly two weeks ago when I had admin, taylhis, and their 4 young’uns over for an evening of fun.  Of course when you get a group of kids together one thing inevitably arises: SLEEPOVER!  I was young once upon a time and remember those days quite well.  So, I helped arrange a date which my niece (not to be confused with another) Elizabeth could possibly stay over with her new chums.  This took a bit of doing since Elizabeth would be spending a week or so with her mother.

Finally, we decided that we would all go to the opening of the WCCT’s youth theatre extravaganza.  This was not a problem with my brother – at first.  When I first asked, there was nothing going on.  Then everything snowballed.  Thursday night was fine… BUT… Elizabeth had to be home the next morning by 10AM.  Wednesday, I was informed that she had to be home by  9AM so they could make their way to Columbus before COSI closed.

Now for the title of the post, Elizabeth rode her bike to the store to fill me in.  In so doing, she kept insisting that it was Thursday instead of Wednesday.  I kept offering logic to the contrary but there was no convincing the 9 year old.  It was nearly 6PM; I get off Thursday at 2PM.  But there was no convincing her.  I wonder if she really thought that it was indeed Thursday or she really does need to be in the youth production next summer.

I hope the little ones had as much fun as the older kids.  The 37 kids on stage were all adorable.  Maybe Tay will post about the experiences the kids had during the sleepover.

It has been a while since the last camp post, so why don’t I just wrap it up in one post?  Since we’re talking two days, I have a lot of photos this time.   The highlights of course were the games and instructionals.  But before we get to those, the themes for the last two days were the tongue and the hands/feet.  The tongue refers to what we say and the hands and feet refer to our actions.  If you’re keeping up with the key verses, here they are (can you match up the theme with the verse?):

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29)

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools will suffer harm. (Proverbs 13:20)

The one heart lesson on Thursday night was the good news- the faithful heart.  After three nights of learning about the bad hearts it was refreshing to finally get to the one that hears the Word and takes action, letting it take root strongly in one’s heart.

The first game was Man Overboard against the Blue Shields.  Man Overboard is a running game where the kids have to follow the directions of where to go and what to do.  There are four sides to a ship, but for this large of a group we only used two- bow and stern.  Besides the two places to go, the one in charge can call things like octopus!, shark!, hit the deck!, and of course the title, man overboard!  There are more too.  When the kids hear this they have to do an action associated with the command.  See the photo section for two such actions.  Since this is a relatively short game for the allotted time, they played a couple of games and followed with a couple rounds of Simon Says.  The boys actually played this the night before before going on a hay ride at the end of the day, but not for a good reason- it was because several boys didn’t listen to directions.  It was a fun sort of reminder for them I think.  Our team rocked on these games.  The next morning the game was Bedlam against the Red Cross.  This was a more subjective game where the teams were given an action to do, like act like a particular animal or object (i.e., ice-cream truck), and whichever team did it best overall according to the leaders judging would win the points.  I have no idea who actually won this one.

Hey, did I skip a game?  Well, that’s because I saved the best for last.  Last time I mentioned Counselor Hunt was switched to Thursday.  This is quite a different game from the rest.  This annual game is where the counselors all hide somewhere in the camp and the kids, working in groups, have to find them.  Over the last four years, I have tamed a bit on this one.  The first couple times I played it I hid so well that almost no one found me.  Last year (or was it the year before?) I switched tactics to make it easier for the kids- I placed myself so that I was hidden from most directions, but visible if they looked from a certain angle.  Several found me of course, but that was the idea.  Another strategy some take with this game is to hide in plain sight.  That is, they will place themselves in a spot they can’t be missed like the middle of the road or reading a newspaper in front of a cabin.  They are so obvious that they must not be playing, or so most of the kids think.  This year I didn’t hide at all.  I was one of the runners, called viruses in this medical theme.  You can tell by the name that this is bad news for the kids.  Instead of hiding, I was one of about four who would chase the kids.  If caught, they would be marked and would have to have the virus “cured” before they could continue the game.  This was a very tiring job- no wonder the high school kids were usually the ones to do it!  I think I marked about five or six kids throughout the game, regrettably one of my own (hey, we had to play fair!).  I ran up to three from my cabin, and instead of running away like they all should have, one of them ran toward me, an excited look on his face that he “found” me. Doh! (visualize hand slapping face here).

There were of course four instructionals throughout the two days.  I won’t talk too much about most of them though for brevity sake.  On Thursday we had fishing and archery.  Yes, there were actual fish in the lake but they didn’t get to cook up what they caught- just catch and release.  I’m sure the kids weren’t too disappointed they didn’t get to clean, gut, and cook the fish…  Not much to say on archery- most kids were, let’s just say not quite Robin Hoods, so I will move on to riflery on Friday.   The kids from Iowa put us to shame here.  They were so practiced at shooting that when they ran out of targets to hit they shot ours!  These were actually pellet guns powered by air- no real bullets for this camp.  This was a new event this year and I was looking forward to it as I remembered my times at Boy Scout camp, though there we had to pay for each round we shot.  You can see what the rifles looked like below.  Rock climbing was the final event of the week for us.  All but one of the boys in my cabin gave it a try.  Again, a couple of pictures below.

The only things left to write about (I’ll probably come up with more once I post this!) are the campfire and going home.  Wednesday night the girls had a campfire while the boys went on a hayride, which, by the way, had no hay- just the cart.  Thursday reversed these roles.  The campfire was to serve a couple of purposes.  The obvious one was marshmallows for s’mores.  The other was to burn a list of fears we wrote up the night before as part of the lesson, signifying that we release these fears to God’s control.  Since we had to wait a day on this for our turn at the campfire, you can guess what happened.  Myself included.  I’ll just say that I found my list once I got home and unpacked.  Speaking of going home, that’s what we did Friday night.  Cleaned up the cabins, packed, and headed to the bus bus.  Once again I was grateful for the buses coming down Dorothy’s Hill so we didn’t have to climb it with our luggage.  All but one of my boys boarded the bus- we left one behind.  On purpose.  Are you curious?  Okay, he was staying for family camp.  His parents wouldn’t arrive until the next day, but he stayed with another dad who stayed behind with his own son.

In the end, our team was not victorious.  We came in a close second, still far ahead of third place.  There’s always next year. 🙂

Oh, one more thing- winning the cleanest boys’ cabin twice really messed me up for one of the things I wanted to do one of the days.  Lots of balloons was the key here, but I guess I will be saving them for next year now.  On Thursday we decided that since we would probably not be allowed to win two days in a row, we saved them for Friday.  On Friday, we were busy cleaning and packing.  Oh, well.  Enjoy the pics, and be sure to click on whatever catches your eye for larger versions.

Oh, no contact lenses were really lost as far as I know.  What?  You don’t read the pop-up tooltips when you hover over the pictures?  For shame! 😛

Watchmen is a very entertaining, interesting, and very graphic take on the world of superheroes.  The movie is adapted from a one shot 12-issue comic series released in the 1980s.  The setting is an alternate world circa 1985 in which President Richard Nixon is still in office (apparently, the 22nd amendment was appealed).  Instead of the disgrace of Watergate, Tricky Dick’s actions concerning Vietnam painted him a hero.

The masked heroes of the piece are in danger of being outlawed by order of the president.  One of these, the Comedian, is murdered.  The rest of the members of the disbanded group of characters, known collectively as the Watchmen, investigate to determine who was behind the death of their fallen comrade.

During the movie there are flashbacks which delve into  the past of each hero.  Silk Specter, Nite Owl, and Ozymandias are the supporting heroes but it is the mysterious Rorschach and the tragic Dr. Manhattan who held my fascination throughout.  Rorschach wears a mask that continuously changes revealing different ink blots (his own personal Rorshach test, yes?).  Dr. Manhattan started life as a physicist but following a catastrophic nuclear accident was transformed into a blue, glowing mutant with several powers (oops… and for the most part, naked with glimpses of all his outer extremities… not enough to warrant anything but the R-rating).  Some of the good guys are so conflicted that it is difficult to say that they are indeed heroic or just as evil as the people they fight.

As I touched upon, there is a lot of graphic violence here.  Lots of crunching bones, blood, and slo-mo action. One scene involves a baddie having his henchmen’s arms sawed off his body.  Definitely not for the young or sqeamish. Plus, the nearly three hour film could turn off some people, but I enjoed it.  A very different comic hero film.

Well, we found a church home in March, and it’s been going very well; we love it there.  The month of August is filled with church opportunities for us – a few classes we’re taking, a carnival for the kids, I’m volunteering in the Welcome Center, and we just went to a retreat at a beautiful Christian campground in Michigan yesterday.  But this post is not about THAT type of faith – it’s about a dog named Faith who was born with only a stub instead of front legs.  They had to remove his stub, and his mommy and first owner rejected him.  His new owner named him Faith and taught him to walk and get along without his front legs just fine.  How cute is this?

Thanks to Elizabeth for sending this to me!

My aunt sent me the following picture of my cousins at the Cubs game the other day down in Florida – it’s a screen shot from WGN.  At least they got to go to the game where the Cubs beat the Marlins at LandShark Stadium!  In case you’re wondering, the Cubs are doing very well right now – over .500 and just a half game out of first place.  They’ve been playing some GREAT baseball and are very fun to watch these days – GO CUBS!