newsflash: I am super old

You'd think that I haven't been updating my own silly online journal for a lack of things to say. Au contrare! I have been too busy and in retrospect, most of it seems to silly to even go back and fill in the blanks.

So anyway! I'll pick up with yesterday, where we finally learned how old we are! We spent the day with our 5 year old nephew and took him to the Atlantis Playpark which was on my Things To Do in 2010 list. I used to go to that park as a kid and loved it, so I was hoping to see it again and not be too terribly disappointed. I chatted with a guy about my own age who was standing at the bottom of the sea serpent slide, waiting for his kids to come down and he said "This park was so much bigger when I was a kid" and I just laughed. In my mind's eye, the place is a million acres and has 600 play areas and felt just like being under water! But to my grown-up eyes, it's not *that* big of a park, although it is very cleverly designed. The hedges and bushes are all maybe 4 feet tall, so to kids they're giant and provide obstruction from one play area to the next, but an adult can survey the whole lot from certain spots. Some of the play areas have climbable statues -- is that a thing? Figures made from concrete, like sharks and star fish, that kids are free to climb on/under, which in my opinion are only fun if you've got a group to 'pretend' with. Poor little dude only had me and Ryan, so we mostly ran from one slide to the next.


Watch out below! Uncle Ryan's coming down the serpent slide!





What? You didn't think Iron Man took play breaks?


Highlight of this slide: playing whale dentist and scrubbing his teeth with sand

All that running? And sliding? And hill climbing to the top of the slide? THAT IS HOW I KNOW I AM OLD. Kidlet was running all dang day with no visible signs of slowing down. We, however, were like "ooh! Who wants to sit on the bench for 5 minutes and rest? Yay!"

The park was super fun and it was a warm day, so we were all really sweaty and hot and Kidlet asked about going to our pool. WHY NOT? Our local pool is heated year-around and the kid pool (1 1/2 feet deep) is guaranteed to be 82 degrees or warmer, so we went home and threw on our swim gear and headed to the pool. Unfortunately, there was a shark in the pool! One who not only growled as he prowled, but also would leap out of the water and body slam into the water like Shamu! Both of these are an amalgam of things he saw when we took him to Cereal World (Sea World) a few weeks ago. The kiddie pool (which, at first he was concerned about, thinking it was a kitty pool and he'd have to swim with cats) also has this water toy that is a hand-cranked pump that fills up buckets with water until they tip over and dump water all over your head. He and Ryan did that for more than an hour.


Shark attack!


In the splash zone


My camera strap got in the way (d'oh!), but what I was trying to show is the water-bucket-that-dumps-one-your-head-thing that was SO DANG HARD and exhausting for the adults who had to do all the cranking

Then after THAT we headed back to our house to change back into dry clothes and then walked to the park at the end of our street that is a kid's bike park. It's laid out like a tiny highway, with lines on the road and tunnels and overpasses. He brought his scooter and scooted through most of it, until he decided that he preferred to walk with us. Although he did stop at the "gas station" section and refueled his Iron Man gear. So that was good. Then he used all that fuel to chase the bad guys on the 'helicopter' in the playground.


Highway overpass


Don't worry, ma'am. Iron Man is in his helicopter and en route!

But like all good superheroes (and aunts and uncles) world-wide, we had a job to do and we did it: to give the Kidlet a fun day AND bring him home bone-tired. Ryan dropped him off and reported back that Kidlet barely survived a bath before falling asleep. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!