Happy Mother's Day

This was ALMOST the best Mother's Day ever! The kids were SO EXCITED about Mother's Day that they came sprinting up the stairs at 6:30 a.m. to give me the things they made at school, and have been hiding in Gage's cedar chest (a.k.a. boot box) with a sign attached that said to stay out! The things the kids made for me were great.

Gage and Emma were really wanting to go to the Superslide Amusement Park today, so I completely used that to my advantage. I had the best behavior out of them every time I brought up the fact that we didn't have to go there, since it was my choice. :-)

I decided that we were going to go on a bike riding adventure today. Yesterday I bought myself a bicycle with my Biolife money, so I was excited to try it out today. The plan was to ride our bikes from the Ducks Unlimited office along the trails to the Superslide, stopping at Meriwethers on the way for lunch along the Missouri River. After we got home from church, we took both vehicles so that we could have one at the Superslide so we wouldn't have to ride the bikes all the way back, as I knew the kids wouldn't want to do that. Their main focus was getting to the superslide. We hadn't even gone the distance of 3 blocks when Emma hopped off her bike and said she was too tired! YIKES! She walked while Scott pushed her bike and his! Gage and I were leading the pack and didn't realize they weren't behind us for a little while, then had to stop and wait for them. It wasn't too long and we were at our lunch destination, which was good because we were all starving to death! The waitress told us that the mothers today got $5 off their meal! BONUS! We didn't order anything too difficult, but they were pretty busy so we ended up not having the best of meals. Emma didn't want to eat her sandwich because she ordered a cheeseburger, not a hamburger. When I finally convinced her that it was okay, she said she didn't like it because it was burned. Well, I couldn't argue with her there, but she had to eat it anyway because I knew if she didn't, she would be starving to death as soon as we walked out the door. My burger was a little overcooked as well, and they served it to me on a bun with lettuce. That's it. I know I ordered a burger that was supposed to have carmelized onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese etc. I had to beg Emma to share her tomato slice with me. I am not one to complain about my meal. I just eat what I get, and if it's bad or wrong, I just don't go back. I did make a comment to Scott and he said something to the waitress which had me a little upset (okay, a lot upset) and I told him it was okay, but the waitress said, "No, that's not okay, I'll go and check." Well, she came back saying that it was the other burger that was to have those toppings, but brought me some sauteed onions anyway. Well, I know I didn't order a plain hamburger with lettuce, but I ate it anyway. Then, when we were paying, they didn't have our $5 Mother's Day discount on the bill, so Scott had to bring that to their attention as well. That won't be my top picks for places to eat in the future, unfortunately. Oh, and their iced tea didn't taste the best. :-)

We took off on our bikes again, and as we got onto the trail, our neighbors across the street, Chris and Erik, zoomed past us! We talked for a second and they too, were headed to the superslide. The ride ended up being 2.05 miles and Emma ended up walking a lot of it. She did great riding her bike without her training wheels though and didn't wreck once (that I'm aware of). We made it to our destination, the kids got to ride some rides and then for some peace and quiet, I rode my bike back to the DU office to get the van while Scott hung out at the amusement park with the kids (all of our bikes won't fit in one vehicle). It was a nice ride back. We then headed home and got some ice cream from Dairy Queen to end the day. The kids were completely exhausted and Gage was asleep before 7 p.m. Emma came up to tell us at 8, in a really snotty voice, that the television was too loud and she couldn't go to sleep. I turned the television down and saluted her on her way back to her room.

We watched Survivor and enjoyed the season finale, and now here I am, filling you all in on our day. You may be asking yourself, "Why did she say it was ALMOST the best Mother's Day ever in the first sentence?" Unfortunately, after I came down here to post on my blog, and also post pictures, we discovered that my camera is lost. :-( I'm guessing it got left at the superslide and I'm praying that some honest person found it and turned it into the office. If you've followed my blog, you would know that I absolutely LOVE this camera and if it's gone, I'm going to be devastated. Not only is it gone, but it has today's pictures that I would like to document in the kids' scrapbooks and several other pictures, which I can't remember the subject of at this moment. I don't even want to think about it.