Gone Part 1

I am back.

We were on vacation.

A much needed vacation.

It had two parts.

Here's part 1:

For Part 1 of our family vacay '09, we headed to the hills for some R&R with my side of the family. I guess you could call it a family reunion of sorts. Not all of my side attended, but the bulk of them were there.

We had a great time, and I was relaxing and enjoying the down time so much so, I didn't even photograph the first 2 days! I know. I am kind of kicking myself now. But whatcha gonna do? However, the last day, I TOTALLY made up for it.

On the last day of Part 1, as we headed back into town, we stopped at a Family Fun center. I think this was THE best part of the entire trip. We had a ton of fun there, and the kids never stopped smiling the whole time. We rode slides, drove bumper cars, and raced in go carts.

Fun, fun, and more fun.

I took some pictures, but I handed my camera off to others for the bulk of the pictures because, well, I didn't want to miss out.

Here we are


I have to say, these slides are tall. I really am surprised that The Little Man rode this all by himself.

Off they go:


If you could really blow this up, you would see the terror on the faces of my children:


Now that it's over, happiness and glee:


And they rode it again so they could say they did it with their mother too:



The bumper cars were a BLAST! There was this saying on the back wall that said, "We sell happiness". I wanted so badly to get a picture of the four of us underneath all cheery in our bumper cars, but we were too busy crushing one another that it never happened. Oh well, here's some happiness without the sign:




Next up, racing go carts.




It was so fun we did them twice.

Two times the fun!

At the end, we all got to do the slides again, together as a group because of some sort of ticket miscalculation that benefited us all (except for one preggo sister who took the pics. Thanks!):


And we're off!




I have to admit, it wasn't all fun and games. On our final run of the slide, I had an unfortunate incident occur. Take a look:


Do you see it?

Here. Here is a closer look:


FYI: When you ride a plastic/fiberglass type slide, really fast, on a warmer sunny day, that slide? It's HOT. And the speed? Well, it creates friction, my friends. The size of the burn marks on my hand tell it all. I don't know what degree burn it was, so I'll just say it was a HOLYCOWIJUSTBURNEDTHELIVINGDAYLIGHTSOUTOFMYHAND degree burn, and call it. I thought about photographing them, but it would just ruin everything. All the fun, the smiles, and laughter would be ruined I tell you, just rurnt . So just try not to think about it, and most importantly no matter how fast you are going, and how much you are tipping over never, ever, reach out with your hand to correct yourself.

Just don't.

Part Deux tomorrow.