Day 1,782 - Ellie Versus the Bee

One of the things that impresses me the most about Ellie is just how tough she is. It’s not uncommon for her to take painful looking spills when practicing her various gymnastics moves or when trying to complete her ninja course in the backyard. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the ever-growing set of calluses on her hands from the aforementioned gymnastics and ninja training. However, not much slows her down for any length of time at all. That’s even true if it’s a pain that she’s never experienced before.

Today’s activity for the kids and me consisted of a trip to Worlds of Fun. There was one way that this differed from some of our previous ones this summer. That being that we could really only stay at the park until about 2:30 so that the kids could come home and rest up before heading to church for VBS tonight. We started our day off with Ellie and Ethan riding the Ferris Wheel together while I stood and watched because there’s a rule that you can only have a max of two per car on the ride. From there, we made our way to Mustang Runner and followed that up with the Detonator.

While I’m aware that this post is supposed to be about Ellie, please allow me to take a second to brag about Ethan here. While he’s tall for his age, he is still only five years old. Therefore, he probably finds himself riding some rides that he’s not 100% ready for. One of those was the Detonator. While he admitted that he was definitely a little uneasy about the way the ride shot straight up in the air, that didn’t stop him from enjoying looking at all of his surroundings while up high.

Another moment in bravery for both kids came as we made our inaugural trip on the Zambezi Zinger. For Ethan, there was definitely some trepidation as he was riding a new ride that he had never ridden before. Big roller coasters make him a little nervous sometimes but he was still more than willing to climb aboard. For Ellie, there was a slight fear factor as not only was she riding a new coaster but she was riding it in a row all by herself. Even though Ethan and I were in the row right behind her, I’m sure that it was still more than a little scary to be in a car all alone. While Ellie and I ultimately both loved the ride, Ethan was willing to admit that he didn’t need to ride the Zinger again on this day.

After finishing our time on the Zinger, we wandered across the park to one of our favorites, the Viking Voyager. Lucky for us, the line for the popular ride was moving rather quickly and we found ourselves seated within ten minutes. Our ride was rather inconsequential. However, it was our process of disembarking from the ride that was something to remember.

As we walked up the exit’s flight of stairs and politely made our way past a man with a walker, Ellie grabbed her face and began screaming in pain out of nowhere. Finally, once we made it into an open area, I was able to get her to pull her hand away long enough to find out that she had been stung by a sweat bee right under her ear. It was obvious that it had hurt; I mean, how could it, not? We quickly made our way to a concession stand and got a cup of ice for her to hold on her face. Then, we found some comfy chairs to sit in while Ellie nursed her face and both kids enjoyed a snack.

Soon enough, both kids were ready to head on again. However, I had my own idea for what we should do first. The Viking Voyager has long been one of Ellie’s favorite rides and I hated the idea of her being afraid of it. Lucky for us though, the line was very short so with a little prodding, I was able to get both kids back on the ride. Once the time came to exit though, Ellie was noticeably nervous. However, we successfully made it through the exit area with no more stings to our name.

I believe it needs to be said that Ellie has no love lost for the sweat bee. When I informed her that bees generally die upon stinging someone, her response was “Good, I’m glad he’s dead!”. While that seems a little harsh, I can’t say that I blame her for those feelings. Can you?

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Day 1,769 - Photographer at Work

It’s always fun to watch one’s children develop a new skill. It doesn’t matter if it’s an academic, athletic, or an everyday life skill. It’s still a fun process to watch unfold. Today, Ellie had one of those moments as she put one of her new birthday gifts to good use and broadened her artistic horizons.

Today was a little bit of an unusual day around the Holt household. As Bethany was working from home, I decided the best thing for the rest of us to do was make ourselves scarce. Therefore, around 9:00 am, Ellie, Ethan, and I loaded up in the car and set out for the Zoo.

While the kids have always loved the Zoo, I’ve noticed over the past year that they are getting a little less excited about going over time. That was bound to happen sooner or later, I guess. We have had Zoo passes for practically Ellie’s entire life. We also were just there twice a couple of weeks ago. Today though, Ellie was actually excited for our trip. The main reason for that being the case was that she was taking along her new camera to take some photos.

Of course, Ellie had to take a photo of her favorite target.

Once we reached the Zoo, the three of us set out for Africa where we made our way around the grounds. It didn’t take Ellie long to begin taking video of the baboons leisurely walking around their enclosure. That was only the beginning of her videography practice for the day. As we circled Africa, she found time to take photos of many of the animals that she saw along the way including the chimpanzees, a pair of tortoises, gorillas, and some birds.

Once we completed a full circle of Africa, we hopped on the Sky Safari to sail over the top of the animals. It was there that Ellie really put her camera to use by taking 180-degree video of the grasslands under her as we flew over the animals. She also took plenty of shots of the giraffes, zebras, and ostriches that resided below. After our round trip was over, it was time to head back to the front section of the Zoo for a quick lunch before taking in some more animals.

Our next stop after lunch was the aquarium where Ellie once again had a ball playing photographer. She seriously made a stop at almost every display to snap some photos of the animals within. My favorite had to be some of her awesome shots of Tortellini the sea turtle. The pride that she showed in sharing her favorite shots with me was pretty awesome to behold too.

Next on the agenda was a pair of quick stops to visit the penguins and the sting rays before making our final stop of the day at the sea lion enclosure to watch animal training. It was here where Ellie’s camera received its biggest workout of the day as she took quite the series of videos highlighting nearly every part of the training.

By the time we finished up at the Zoo, Ellie had taken around 40 photos and videos and had done a fantastic job documenting our trip. Like I said earlier, it’s really fun to see one’s child learning a new skill and I’m certainly excited to see what exactly she chooses to take pictures of next!

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Day 1,768 - Ellie's Birthday Bonanza

It’s kind of unbelievable to even process but Ellie had her eighth birthday last week. Yes, that’s correct; she is eight years old! It’s crazy because it seems like it wasn’t too long ago that we took a picture of Ellie stretched out on her changing pad the day we brought her home from the hospital. Seeing as how turning eight years old is quite the achievement, we definitely found it necessary to celebrate. In fact, we ended up having a full week of celebrating Ellie.

Are we actually sure that's the same kid?

The week of celebrating Ellie started on Tuesday with her heading up to my parents’ house to spend the night. While she’s spent the night up there before, Bethany and I have always been along. On this occasion, she was actually spending the night all by herself! Around 9:00, Ellie, Ethan, and I loaded up in the Traverse and headed towards Dearborn, which is the halfway mark between Kansas City and Savannah. Shortly after we arrived, my mom pulled in to the gas station parking lot where Ethan and I said a quick goodbye to Ellie before she and my mom headed on their way.

During her time in Savannah, it certainly sounded like they had quite the fun night. She got to eat out twice, go shopping for a new outfit, got a pedicure, and even saw a movie at the theater! In other words, she was definitely spoiled during her time in Savannah. Honestly, it was good for her to just have a little time by herself. I know that she sometimes feels like she has to share so many experiences with Ethan that it was really fun for her to get a special experience all for herself.

Fast forward to Thursday and Ellie’s actual real-life birthday. Like any good mom would, Bethany took the day off from work to celebrate the special day with Ellie. When we asked Ellie how she would like to spend the day, she thought about it for approximately 35 seconds before responding that she wanted to go to Worlds of Fun. While we waited for Worlds of Fun to open though, she was able to get lots of playtime in on her brand-new ninja course in the backyard. If you’re at all familiar with Ellie’s dream of becoming an American Ninja Warrior, then you realize how this was the perfect gift for her. In less than fifteen minutes, she had even conquered the course in its entirety. That hasn’t stopped her from doing it time and time again over the past few days though.

Once Worlds of Fun opened for the day, the four of us headed to the park for a day of adventures. During our time with our season passes thus far, Ellie has wanted to take in some of the park’s roller coasters. However, she’s been a little intimidated to ride in a car by herself as she would have to do with Ethan in tow. With another adult with us though, her time had finally come. The first coaster that she chose to conquer was the legendary Timber Wolf.

As we strapped in, Ellie continually looked at me for affirmation that everything was going to be ok as she was more than a little intimidated. When the climb up the first big hill began, it goes without saying that she was freaking out a little. Once we reached the top though, there was nothing to do but hold on tight. As we careened down the first big hill, I looked over at Ellie to see her arms up in the air and a big smile on her face as we bounded around the track. By the time we had reached the end, Ellie looked at me and immediately asked to ride again so that’s exactly what we did. After our second trip, Ellie found Bethany waiting for us outside and recruited her to ride as well. By the time we were done, Ellie had ridden the Timber Wolf three times and Prowler twice. I think it’s safe to say that the girl loves roller coasters!

With that, we fast forward again to Saturday and Ellie’s birthday party. I don’t remember when but at some point, Ellie decided that she actually wanted to have a birthday party with her friends this year. As such, we asked her to make up a guest list of people to invite which ended up totaling four girls from her class. As you can see, Ellie wanted to keep the guest list quite exclusive. Of course, any party needs some cake so Bethany and Ellie spent the morning whipping up a batch of “Better Than Everything” cupcakes for her to share with her friends.

Per Ellie’s request, we had her party at City Park in Liberty. The park not only has a playground but also has a great splash pad. Somewhat unfortunately, two of the members of her guest list were indisposed and could not attend. That didn’t stop Ellie and the remaining two from having a great time running back and forth between the playground and the splash pad while enjoying their time together. By the time we were done, the girls (and Ethan) had spent over two hours playing hard. I’m certain that everyone slept well that night too!

Finally, Sunday and the final day of a week of celebrating Ellie’s birthday rolled around. On this day, we were joined by Bethany’s parents and Ellie’s cousins for a full day of play. Of course, it wouldn’t be a celebration of Ellie without her specially requested birthday meal of, you guessed it, pancakes, sausage, and eggs, followed by an Oreo ice cream cake for dessert.

Wow, after reading back through all of that, it’s fairly obvious that Ellie had an incredibly full week celebrating her birthday. Now, I’m just curious if she’ll expect a big deal to be made out of the rest of her birthdays to come. We’ll just have to see!

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Day 1,763 - Summer Days Go By

It feels as if I’ve been more than a little busy this summer. For example, just since Ellie went on summer vacation, we’ve been to Worlds of Fun three times, Oceans of Fun twice, the Zoo twice, countless park trips, a few library trips, a trip to Savannah to see my mom and dad, a trip to Nebraska, and we’ve even gotten lost in the woods. All of these have been super fun but sometimes it’s good to just slow down and take a breather. Over the past couple of days, that’s been the plan.

Wednesday was one of the first days of the summer where it felt like we actually took a break and decided to not run ourselves ragged. Instead, we just peacefully chilled out at home and watched the movie, “Leo”. For the record, Ellie and Ethan were initially cautious at the idea of watching a new movie. They generally prefer to watch something that they have seen before but I was eventually able to convince them to give something new a try. Lo and behold, they ended up loving it and already want to watch it again!

Of course, no day can pass without work to be done. On Wednesday, that looked like doing three loads of laundry and heading to Aldi to do some long-delayed grocery shopping. I will say this about grocery shopping with both kids. It didn’t take me long to miss those times during the school year where I was shopping by myself. That was especially true when both kids decided to hang on the side of the cart as I made my way through the store. After all, a heavily loaded cart is hard enough to push without an extra hundred pounds weighing it down.

Today was a little bit fuller than yesterday but it was still fairly relaxing. We started our morning off with an impromptu trip to Hodge Park for some morning park time. The beautiful thing about hitting up a park around 8:00 am is that it’s a near guarantee that you will have the place to yourself. That was exactly the case in this instance. While I generally enjoy being around people, it is a special experience to just be able to soak up playing at the park without the stimulus of other kids running around. It also provided me with a nice little workout as Ellie and Ethan took turns being slung down the zipline by me.

After our park trip, we headed to the Liberty branch of the Mid-Continent Public Library where the kids picked out some new library books to check out as well as picking out their reward for the first 20 days of the Summer Reading Program. As Ellie gets older, it’s always fun to watch her painstakingly deciding what book to choose for her reward. She always takes time to read the backs as well as looking for awarded medals on the front.

This afternoon, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and our friend, Cochran, by heading to his neighborhood pool for a couple of hours of swimming. As Ellie’s gotten older, it’s become really fun to work with her on her swimming technique. On this occasion, I took her down to the 5-foot-deep part of the pool and let her practice with. Of course, I was alongside her, taking care to do two things: Number 1: ensure that she did not drown and Number 2: provide instruction as needed.

Soon enough though, our fun ended, and it was time to head home and grill some tasty brats for dinner followed bed soon thereafter. I guess the moral of the story is that even though we had a couple of days without a big adventure planned, we still had plenty of things to do to provide entertainment and keep us busy.

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Day 1,755 - Boards, Saws, and Snakes

Summer’s here! However, I still feel like we’re not fully celebrating it yet. For one thing, all last week, Ellie spent her mornings taking part in a VBS while Ethan would spend his days at Fox Hill Elementary practicing what kindergarten will be like in the fall.

As for this week though, I had been looking forward to it quite a bit. You see, Ethan still is at Fox Hill each day. However, Ellie’s at home with me. Over the past week, I had been planning out fun things for us to do together. Among them were a trip to Savannah, an afternoon at Oceans of Fun, some tennis, and likely a trip to the library. However, when Ethan woke up this morning running a high fever which meant he couldn’t go to school. Instead of Ellie and I having some kind of adventure, we instead found ourselves just hanging out at the house all day. That being said, there’s still fun to be had if one keeps their eyes open.

For this day, I had one big goal to complete which Ethan being sick didn’t change. You see, since I worked on our deck last year, I’ve had a ton of old boards laying around from the project that needed to be gotten rid of. Therefore, I decided to take the first step toward making that a reality by sawing up some of the longer ones so that they could actually fit in my car.

While Ethan slept this morning, I headed outside to the backyard with Ellie in tow to begin my project. I started by picking up a longer board and carrying it down my patio stairs and towards the front yard. While I expected Ellie to just kill time by playing on her swing, she instead picked up a smaller board and followed me around front. In fact, with every trip I made to the front yard, she was right there behind me carrying one or two boards of her own.

Eventually, we had all the boards around front, and I began setting up my workstation so that I could safely cut the boards down. Finally, it was time to saw. Before I started, I gave Ellie strict instructions on how to keep both herself and me safe while I cut. Lucky for me, she’s great at following directions so there were no problems. On a couple of occasions, I actually had her hold the board so that I could cut safely. Don’t worry; she was quite a way off from where I was cutting.

One of my favorite things about our project was seeing how excited Ellie gets about the smallest things. As I made my way through our pile of lumber, I looked over at one point to see Ellie excitedly watching the ground. I set down my saw and made my way over to Ellie to see what she was looking at. As it turned out, she had found a garter snake and was watching it crawl about our driveway. It eventually disappeared into the grass but that didn’t stop Ellie from finding one of its snakeskins amongst the boards. I’m sure that it comes as no surprise to many people that she decided to keep that skin for her collection of interesting things that she finds in nature.

While our day obviously didn’t go according to plan, it’s still special to know that Ellie and I can make memories and have fun just doing everyday life together in the front driveway. Honestly, those small moments are probably some of the longest lasting memories that we’ll have together, too.

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Day 1,745 - Summer Break's A-Comin'

Today kind of marked a weird day for me. You see, it’s one of those days that’s not unbelievably significant but still somewhat significant. Today was the final day that Ethan and I will spend alone before Ellie joins us for summer break. Not only that, but it’s likely the final day that the two of us will spend together before Ethan begins school in the fall. Crazy, right?

Since I had attributed so much meaning to the day, I decided to try and make it all about Ethan by basically letting him plan our day. Of course, when you tell a five-year-old that he’s responsible for planning the day, you’re sometimes met with a resounding chorus of “I don’t know.” Therefore, I ended up having to give him ideas here and there for things to do. We finally ended up with plans to go to a park in the morning and then to go to a splash pad later in the afternoon.

After dropping Ellie off at school, Ethan and I started our day off by heading to E.H. Riverfront Park in Riverside. Honestly, it’s been a while since we’ve wandered to Riverfront Park so Ethan was actually pretty stoked to get to play there. Between the three-story slide, the zip-lines, and the various things to climb, it’s one of his favorites!

When we first arrived, Ethan quickly made his way to the big slides where he took a few trips down. Then, he asked me if we could head to the zipline. Most park ziplines are pretty small and easy for kids to get on and off. Not so at Riverfront. Ethan actually needs help to initially climb up onto the seat and then after that he’s fine. Before our ziplining fun began, Ethan decided to challenge himself by taking on the ropes agility course leading to the zipline. He’s really become a fan of stuff like this since watching American Ninja Warrior on television last year. He honestly does a pretty good job at it, too. I’m continually amazed at how he deftly makes it across obstacles that it seems like he has no business attempting.

Once he finished up at the zipline, Ethan headed back to the playground to tackle that agility course which involved him climbing through a series of ropes, across floating portals, up a “rock” wall, and finally reaching solid ground on the other side. Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to the park without engaging in a little time playing soccer together. I’ve been trying to teach him the value of dribbling and passing so we spent time in the octoball pit so that he could practice making and receiving short passes.

After that, we headed home for lunch and a quiet time before our afternoon activities could commence. Around 1:00 pm, Ethan and I began getting changed into our swimsuits so that we could make our way to City Park in Liberty to play at the splash park.

Ethan’s one request for the splash park was that I actually stand under the large dumping bucket with him and get wet. While I didn’t initially think that was a big thing to ask, my mind was certainly changed when I realized just how cold the water was on this day. Eventually though, I worked up the courage to join my already-drenched son under the bucket for a dumping (even if I did sidestep most of it at the last minute).

Eventually, Ethan tired of the splash park and made his way over to the adjoining playground to dry off while playing on some more ropes courses. If you didn’t already know, Ethan definitely has a favorite kind of playground. My favorite part though was watching him continually try to leap from stone to stone in an attempt to make it through an area of the playground without touching the ground. It’s always fun how such a simple activity can activate both his imagination and his competitive streak in a never-ending quest to complete his mission.

Around 3:00 pm, I had to break it to the little man that it was time for us to head home. After all, I knew we had one more activity ahead of us for the day and I wanted us to have the opportunity to change clothes, rest, and grab some supplies for our final activity. When the time came, we headed to school to pick up Ellie and made a stop by Summer Sno Co. on the way home. You see, Ellie’s been asking to go to the snow cone stand for at least a couple of weeks and I had promised her we could on the last day of school. Since Friday is a full day, I instead chose to celebrate the last day of school on Thursday.

The great thing about Summer Sno Co. is that their snow cones are large enough for multiple people to share. As such, I generally take along some extra cups and spoons for splitting up the snow cones so that everyone can have their own. Of course, the downfall of that choice is that it normally takes a bit of time for the kids to come to a consensus on what flavor to get. Luckily on this day, it went fairly smoothly, and they decided on the special of Polynesian Punch (Pineapple, Strawberry, and Black Cherry).

Once we received our order, I split the snow cones up among the three of us and we found a shady spot to sit and enjoy our frozen treat in the shade before heading home for the day. As you can see, it certainly was a full and fun last day before summer. Unfortunately, I’ve got several more last days to celebrate in the upcoming months. Don’t worry; I’m already trying to mentally prepare myself for those lasts to come.

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Day 1,742 - "The Soccer Star"

One of the things that I love most about Ellie and Ethan is their penchant for being active. Neither of them is particularly happy with sitting around and being lazy. They’d much rather be having fun and using their imaginations or playing some kind of game. In fact, playing games has been a consistent in our home for quite a while. There’s been lots of games of cornhole, hours of me teaching Ellie to play tennis, and plenty of rounds of catch with a baseball and a glove. Of course, I would be remiss if I neglected to mention all of the time spent tossing a football with Ethan.

Over the past month or so, our family has embraced a new game: soccer or futbol for our Spanish speaking friends. I don’t completely remember how it started but long story short, we signed Ethan up for soccer with Sporting Kansas City’s youth soccer program. I’m sure part of our thinking was that Ellie has routinely taken gymnastics classes for the past few years and maybe it would be a good thing for Ethan to have an activity of his own. I’m pretty sure we told him he could play soccer or baseball but can’t confirm or deny that. The end result was that he picked soccer and as such, found his new favorite sport!

It's honestly been really fun to watch Ethan’s understanding and skill for “the Beautiful Game” grow over the past few weeks. Early on, his only goal was to kick the ball. As the weeks went by though, he developed his ability in moving the ball downfield and especially in defense. Seriously, I don’t know a ton about soccer but I can truthfully say that the kid is a menace to other players when it comes to defense. He even had another player call him a bully due to his propensity for hustling downfield and routinely stopping potential goals.

Yesterday actually marked Ethan’s final game of the season. Going into the final game, Ethan’s team, the Gray Wolves, sat with a record of 2 – 3. If you know Ethan at all, then it’s no surprise to hear that he was extremely unsatisfied with that record. On more than one occasion, he actually complained to Bethany and me about his teammates not giving their all. Honestly, that was a good opportunity to teach him about the concept of winning and losing as a team.

Lucky for Ethan’s competitive nature, the entire team seemed to be on the same page for the game yesterday. It was as if they all knew it was their final chance to end the season on a high note. Ethan put on his normal masterful defensive performance which included some last-minute blocks of what otherwise would have been an easy goal for the Green Grasshoppers. The highlight though had to have been watching him deftly weave his way down the field and score a goal all by himself while his teammates were laying on the ground.

When the final whistle rang, the score of the game was 4 to 3 in favor of Ethan’s squad. Honestly as I watched Ethan get his medal symbolizing the end of a fun season, I was a little bummed. I’ve had a great time watching him play over the past few weeks. Never fear though as we’ve already signed him up for the Fall season. I’m honestly excited to see how he improves once that time comes as he’ll actually be having full practices one night a week prior to his games on the weekends. It’s going to be fun!

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