I've started referencing "our village" here and there on the blog so I figured I'd explain it a bit. We've all heard the saying before, "It takes a village to raise a child." As a single mom, I depend heavily on "our village." Here's a run down of "our village" in no particular order...
Matt-This one seems a bit obvious as we are the parents of said child that we are raising. It's difficult enough to raise a child under the same roof, try doing it under two! We struggle, we aren't perfect, but we both understand the end goal that it's up to us to raise her to be a strong, independent woman.
Our Families-Luckily, we have family close by! Matt's mom takes her to school and picks her up most days for us so we don't have to pay childcare. Matt's sister is literally less than five minutes from us to help out in a jam. My mom is moving back to Missouri and will be about fifteen minutes from us so it'll be nice having that help, especially with my work schedule. My sister has driven forty minutes out of her way to help with AR. My dad is always a phone call away to answer any question I have. We have been blessed to have such loving and supportive families.
Co-Workers-These people deserve an award! They get to hear it all, the good, the bad, the ugly. They've passed on clothes to AR, which are always in tip top shape then my kid wears something once and it's stained for life-they're like ninja moms when it comes to that. They've helped me through my darkest times, they've calmed my nerves when there was a lice outbreak at school, and they make sure to let me know I'm not alone... ever.
Friends-When life gets hard, your true friends shine through, everything from simple texts to see how we're doing, to inviting us over when our weekend ends up free due to a cancelled flight thanks to a hurricane, to coming over for dance parties in ice storms with salt for our driveway, brand new shoes for AR, playdates in a pinch, and the list goes on! There is no way I would be able to make it without the amazing friends in our lives that are more like family.
Strangers-What? How can strangers be part of our village? I have said it before and I will say it again and again every time it's proven to be true... people are placed in our lives, on our paths at the exact time for a reason. Whether it be the Yankees fan that sat next to us at spring training and gave us his Cardinals popcorn helmet that turned into our Easter egg basket at the hotel the next morning or the random grandparents and their granddaughter that we met over our spring break trip, they were placed in our lives for a reason and they are part of our village.
Raising a child is tough, especially when said child is a sassy four-year-old going on fourteen, but when we have a village like ours, I know we're on the right track. To those of you in our village, saying thank you will never be enough for the impact you've had on our lives, but thank you nonetheless. To those not in our village, I'm sure our paths will cross when they are supposed to and so, I'll say thank you in advance.
This weekend kicked off the start of AR's spring break! Originally, I had big plans in the fall for us to go to Florida for part of this week but life happens, things changed, and we're not going to Florida in hopes of taking a different trip this summer in the complete opposite direction! So, I did what I do best, worked my magic, and planned us something just as fun a little closer to home.
The weekend started off with a drive to Rock Island, IL where Lyssa Layne had a signing. AR was my mini-PA for the day, dressed the part and all. She found another author's daughter and the two were immediately besties. After the signing, we drove to Burlington, Iowa and stayed at the Pzazz Resort.
I didn't tell AR anything at all about the hotel or what they had there so she literally thought all there was to do was a regular hotel pool. Boy was her mind blown! At the Pzazz, they have a place called Fun City which has an indoor and outdoor water park, go carts, arcade, bowling, ball pit/ballground, laser tag, and probably a whole lot of other stuff I'm leaving out!
Overall, we had a great time time and my girl is WORE out. I'll give you a run down of what all we did, the pros and cons, and share some sweet pics, too. For the price of what it cost to stay at a chain hotel, we got our hotel room, indoor water park, and $20 on a game card. I paid $10 extra for Ballocity, the ball pit/playground, and the Sky Tykes which I thought was a pretty sweet deal. Your hotel room includes four passes to the indoor water park but since it was just the two of us, they gave us the $20 game card and we got a coupon for half off Ballocity.
Saturday, we checked in around 5PM, and I'll be honest, the place was insane! There was almost no parking and there were people everywhere. Immediately, I was beginning to wonder how this was going to be. I guess with it being spring break and the only local attraction in the rural Midwest, the place was a nuthouse! We saw at least four birthday parties going on in addition to guests staying at the hotel/resort and people that came and just paid daily admission.
We took our time unloading the car and getting to our room but of course, some little girl was in a hurry to get to the pool! This picture was taken on Sunday morning, nothing at all like what we walked into on Saturday. I will say that I have talked to two other families that went here in January and February and said it was NOTHING like what we experienced with so many people so I guess it just depends on when you go. Anyway, we walk in and again, insanity! The recreation professional in me was having a panic attack because there was only two lifeguards working, both in the lazy river area, and easily a hundred plus people in this pool. AR got to swimming in the kid area here, she loved the slide and she is so her mother's child as she was telling kids that "slides are for going down, not up" as child after child tried to climb up the slide and she waited for them to move. We were barely there for fifteen minutes when someone pooped in the kid area and everyone had to get out. It was a blessing in disguise as it cleared out a lot of people but it was still pretty full.
I was hesitant to put our stuff down because there were so many people there but I found a nice man who let us share their table. AR and I got in the lazy river and other pool area and chatted with his wife and granddaughter. Turns out that their neighbor is a lady I work with for one of the author signings! Their granddaughter and AR were the same age so the girls had a blast playing together and in typical preschool behavior, the girls had made us a dinner date before the swimming was over! We swam for a long time with them then everyone changed and we ate dinner with them at the restaurant in the hotel. We split a pizza and it was sooo good! Even better, the girls got to dance on the dance floor and had a blast playing together. We might even see them again in July! I've said it before and I'll say it again but I strongly believe people are placed in our paths at the right time for the right reasons.
Now, while the kid pool was closed, they shocked the pool which is proper protocol but there was no lifeguard on duty so kids kept getting into it. Again, the recreation professional in me was having palpitations especially as one of the lifeguards in the lazy river left their post to tell kids to get out. I've just been around pools too long to notice that kind of stuff because no one else seemed to notice. It was a good pool so long as you watched your own children and like all pools, don't depend on the lifeguards to "babysit" your kids for you. Way too overcrowded but it sounded like it wasn't normally like that. AR had a great time so really, that's all that matters?
After swimming, we had dinner with our new friends. Again, the pizza was delish! They had a twenty-eight inch pizza-it was insane the size of that thing!!! When our bellies were full, we told our new friends goodbye then headed over to the arcade. We played a few games but AR really wanted to do the go-carts. It was later Saturday night but we still waited in line over thirty minutes to ride these babies! I'm glad we did because it was my favorite part of the night!
The inside turns were a little tricky but I got the hang of them pretty fast and I'm happy to say that I didn't crash us! After the go-carts, we played out the rest of the money on our arcade cards and traded in our tickets for trinkety stuff that I'm sure will be lost before Wednesday.
We slept in on Sunday which was nice but no worries, we were the first ones in line for Ballocity! It was basically a giant playground with tons of balls inside it. They had a few different slides which was AR's favorite. I gave her my phone and told her to take some pics for me to post on the blog. This was the first pic she took.
I told her that was a great pic, very creative, and I would totally use it but I said, go take more. She always wants to use my phone to take pictures and the one time I ask her to, she brings me back one! Well, she took my phone but I didn't get any more pics... I got videos! They're pretty awesome though...
This was the giant tub of balls that randomly rained down on the kids!
You can see AR in the left side of the pic trying to dodge the rain of balls.
And this is the outside view of Ballocity.
This was AR's favorite shooter but you had to go to the first floor to carry balls up to the second floor so she could only take a handful at a time.
I hadn't planned on her doing the Sky Tykes but it was right next to Ballocity and she really wanted to do it. Since I'd only paid half-price for Ballocity, I figured why not. She really wanted to do the big kids one but you had to be 48 inches so she had to do the smaller one. You get 15 minutes which at first I thought wasn't long enough but after 10 minutes, she was bored and ready to be done.
Here's just one of the obstacles that they could do.
She mastered it pretty quickly so then I would tell her to run or bunny hop to mix it up a little bit. She enjoyed it though although the allure of it wore off pretty quickly.
Like I said above, it was a great little weekend getaway trip for spring break. Our room was supposed to be non-smoking but the bathroom reeked of smoke. We weren't in the room much though so it didn't bother us too much. It was only about three hours from St. Louis so the drive wasn't bad. I feel like we did a lot and there was a huge variety. I think if we'd gone on another weekend that wasn't so busy, it would've been better but all the people didn't slow AR down. She had an awesome weekend and I can hear her snoring from her room! It was the perfect start for our little spring break staycation!
Yesterday was my big 3-4 birthday! It was pretty low key. I met my dad, sis, and the rest of the family for lunch on Sunday. Monday I went to work and my co-workers decorated my cube for me. Not gonna lie, I was kinda diggin' the cave the sign created in my cube. My mom brought AR up to my work around 4 because she had swim lessons at 4:30PM so I watched her swim for a bit...
Then we headed to my "birthday party!" AR is always wanting me to have a birthday party so last year we went and saw Zootopia with my sister. Since I'm trying to get more active, this year, we went to Rockin' Jump which is a trampoline park. It was perfect because there was something for her and me and I got a great workout in!
They had a rock climbing wall. I was a little surprised when she said she wanted to it but with no fear, she suited up and went straight to climbing up that wall. She did a pretty good job and wasn't even scared at all!
Check out those mad climbing skills!
My friend Maggie came and AR helped her get ready to climb next.
Then we went back to jumping! Here I am celebrating the big 3-4 with my best cheerleading jump.
My friend Deven was there too. She's rockin' the straddle jump!
My little gymnast was loving this place!
Between swim lessons and jumping, this little girl was passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow!
Check out this sweet trick that she started doing all on her own! #daredevil
I thought this was a pretty sweet action shot of Mags!
Maggie's husband, Steve, came. This was his pose for the camera-ha!
She was upset when we had to leave after an hour and a half... momma was just exhausted!
The next set of pics will show you that it is impossible to get a picture of 4 people jumping at the same time and in focus!
Cute idea... but yeah, too bad we're all blurry!
This was such an awesome birthday party! And it wasn't that busy for a Monday night either.
AR loves this pic so I had to include it.
Our #motherdaughter pic... this is how they typically go!
Turning 34 wasn't that bad, I had a pretty fantastic day! Thanks to everyone who texted, called, gave me Reese's eggs (I have no will power!), messaged, got me my awesome new FitBit (my co-workers already hate my pacing in the office to hit my hourly goal), my new headphones, appliances, and the list goes on. Man, the people in my life sure know how to spoil a girl! Can't wait to see what this year brings me... aside from all the steps I've been getting in!
