Since I don’t seem to have much time to blog as this “family trip” is taking place, I will have to lump all of this into one post. One Tuesday, we visited IKEA. For those of you who have never visited an IKEA store I am very sorry. It is the experience of a lifetime, especially if you have kids. IKEA is for families with kids and they are all about making everything family friendly. My kind of store with 3 boys!!!

As you enter the store, there is a children’s area where you can leave your potty trained children in the care of IKEA employees for 45 minutes. The kids are excited to go in and play in the big clog shoe and ball pit area. The attendants go over the rules with the kids and their parents. Gabriel was too tall to enter Smaland (that’s how it is spelled) so he went shopping with mom and dad.

Off to shop we went, and boy was I excited. I was scoping out a dresser, chest and nightstand I had seen online and wanted to check it out in person. The shipping wasn’t too bad on these items, but I wasn’t sure if it was what I wanted. It is exactly what I want. Off to lighting to find Abbye this funkly lamp she wants. Got it! Next to rugs to find a rug for Terri. The one she wanted the salesperson at IKEA didn’t recommend she was very helpful and told me it sheds. I found another on and saved Terri $84.00. Next to the children’s department to get ideas for children’s ministry and I spend a long time there. I didn’t want to leave.

Bryan went to get the Noah and Adam while I kept getting ideas. I took numerous pictures with my camera phone. I would have the boys stand beside an item so I could tell how big it was. They make great reference points.

We had been at IKEA for 3 hours and everyone was hungry. It was my plan to stay until mealtime because you can eat there so cheap. Our family of 5 ate dinner for $22. Bryan had salmon, potatoes and veggies and I had chicken marsala with mashed potatoes and veggies and the kids had kids meals. I love IKEA!!!! By the way the closest one to Wilmington is about 5 hours away. It is rumored that Charlotte is getting an IKEA.

Wednesday brought Six Flags and thank goodness for an overcast day. It was only 84 degrees, and I was very thankful. We arrived at the park at 11:00 am and were suprised how few people attended.  We had a nice day as a family riding those rides that we individually enjoyed. Bryan doesn’t ride water rides unless he is at a water park, so I did my parental duty and rode them. I looked like a drowned rat after coming off the rapid ride. Our raft went completely under the waterfall. My socks were still wet when we left the park several hours later.

Bryan performed his parental duty by riding the Goliath with Noah. When they met up with Gabriel, Adam and myself, Noah was wearing a Goliath rollercoaster shirt. I told him if he rode it he could get one. He and  his Dad didn’t waste anytime. I wish I could have ridden it too, maybe in a of couple years.

Thursday it was off to White Water and Adam had been looking forward to this day. He and Noah had been on the website to see what kind of waterslides were there. I had a VIP pass to get $10 off each ticket and that was the best I could find. The sky was blue as we drove into the waterpark.

Our first ride was a rapid ride with floats, I was loving it until my float tipped over and I lost my favorite sunglasses in the rapids. The nice lifeguard let me stay in the little pool and look for them  and then I saw Bryan motioning to me at the bottom of the ride that he found them. I hopped on my float and down I went. When he showed me the sunglasses he had I was apawled. They looked like something Phyllis Dillard would wear. I put them on and said, “Do these look like my sunglasses,?” Of course he said no. These glasses were huge.

We continued to ride the waterslides and have fun in the pools. I kept squinting so off to get some kind of hat or visor. I found a cute Roxy visor on clearance and went back to found the guys. It started thundering and lightning, so they cleared the water and sent everyone to the cabanas. We waited for an hour and decided we would leave. Just in time. A down pour started and we were soaked as we ran to the parking lot as lightning was striking all around where we were.