So much fun last year that we did it again!

Carter and I had quite an eventful 24 hours over the weekend.  In fact, it was quite similar to the same weekend last year, when we crammed in a ton of activities over a 26-hour period (posts here and here).  It was once again Canal Fest Craft Show weekend, and at the same time I was thinking I'd love to get Carter to Buffalo to hit up a few playgrounds that had been on my list.  With him growing like a weed, I know we're definitely going to be winding down on the playground phase soon.  He's getting bigger, and unless a playground has something different, it's not keeping his attention as long these days.  He still enjoys them and I think wants to love them, but it's definitely coming to an end soon.  So I'd like to cram in what I can this summer, just in case he's completely over it by next year.  That will break my heart a bit, but hopefully we find something else to bond over by then, other than roller coasters since that could get expensive!  Anyway, I hatched a plan to go up on Friday, go back to Zoomagination that night, do the craft show on Saturday, and then hit up all the playgrounds.  It was only then that I realized that was almost exactly what happened last year--except last year we added in the SIKA Challenge, the homemade boat race at Canal Fest.  While I enjoyed that experience and would have gladly done it again, I think Carter got a little antsy with the waiting (being there early to claim our spot and lags in between races) so I was fine with one less activity and being able to get home for a family dinner instead.

Once again, I felt like it took us forever to get on the road Friday night.  I had to work and make dinner, and then spent a while working through Disney trip issues.  We were debating resorts and Craig was having issues with getting the flights booked, so by the time we got on the road I knew we weren't far off from last year's timing, which was slightly later than ideal but overall fine.  My goal was to avoid any parking issues (we just missed getting in the lot last year but lucked out with a random (free) road spot right outside the lot--I knew we couldn't get that lucky two years in a row) and get through one full walk-around in daylight, and then do another lap in the dark.  The lanterns look so different in daylight vs. night, so I think it's beneficial to see both.

The new welcome arch was stunning, even in the light!

Our very first stop inside was the kaleidoscope thing that we missed out on last year that led to a bit of a Carter tantrum that ruined the end of our night and started a bit of a trend leading up to Disney of Carter letting one thing ruin something that was otherwise good--like not getting to ride Ride of Steel a couple weeks later.  We weren't going to miss this feature this time!  In the end it was pretty much not worth getting excited about last year.  You walked in, took a couple pictures and video, and that was about it since other people were waiting.  Neat, but not as cool as I think we thought it would be.  Oh well!

Where the big butterfly tree was last year, this year was a giant heart.  It did have a fun feature where if you held a couple metal poles in front of it, the lights on the heart switched to a pulsing heart beat.  That was sort of neat!

The animals generally aren't out for this event, though you can see inside the rhino house.  We caught a glimpse of their (big) baby rhino having a snack!

We also saw the polar bear sleeping, and the mountain goats were out on their mountain again like last year.  And the bunnies were all over the exhibits again.  I guess while the animals are away, the bunnies will play!

The exhibits were entirely new this year.  There were a couple similarities, but they did a good job switching things out.  We were constantly recalling what was in those spots last year.  This year had some fun, different interactive things.  I think as a whole the displays weren't quite as impressive as last year, but with that being the first, it's always tough to top the original.  But some of the interactive stuff might have actually been cooler, so it all balanced out.  We still really enjoyed it all and it was worth doing again.

First big display was an ocean one.  We loved the crab up top!

The fun part of this one was that there were stars to stomp on to make little jumping fountains shoot up in an arc. 

Most of the first half of the displays were aquatic.  There were piranhas...

...and axolotls...

...and a giant octopus!

There was also a variety of tropical fish, plus a huge jellyfish that you'll see when we get to the night part of our visit. 

This crab was fun because there was a bubble machine nearby that shot out those fun smoke bubbles like they had last year near the panda display. 

They also had puffer fish, and the big one was literally puffing out smoke!

You can just see the wisp of smoke right around the mouth

The best part of the whole display, in my opinion, was the gates and temple near the far end of the zoo.  They were in the same section as the giant dragon last year.  The dragon is a personal favorite from both of the times I've seen displays like this, but this was pretty impressive in its own right!

One of the newer features was this funky sequin wall.  Carter found it very satisfying to flip a swath of sequins.

There was a spot to get a picture taken in the middle of what I assume is a lotus flower.  I did take Carter's picture but I also had him take one of me!

He had fun with these ready-made social media frames.  He likened this one to the SNL Landshark skit...

I'm only a dolphin, ma'am...

Notice that's pretending to hold the octopus' "hand"...

We played with a bunch of interactive elements, including a giant fiber optic jellyfish, stars that changed color as you stepped on them, the fun circle swings from last year, and lanterns that lit according to beats on a drum.  It was a lot of fun!

This was much fancier in the dark but this video shows Carter better so you can see that he was making them change.

There was a whole display of bugs and spiders and various foliage.  I'm not a fan of spiders but the sheer size of this one was pretty cool.

I tried to take a selfie in front of the pretty flowers, just because it's always nice to have a new profile pic waiting in the wings, but it turned out the picture with my little photo bomber turned out better!

One of our last stops in daylight was to see this crazy snake tunnel.  They had one of these last year, but in a different color scheme.

We came back around to the front to start our lap in the dark!  This was in the front flower bed, one of a bunch of dragonflies (and you can see the heart again in the background).

Last year's wisteria tunnel was cool, but this was quite stunning as well with the night sky.

I liked this lobster walk, but how pretty is the temple down at the end with the sunset sky?

The big butterflies were stunning in the dark!

This is what those drum-operated lanterns looked like in the dark.  So pretty!

The jellyfish was crazy and fun.  It constantly changed color and it was fun to walk in it.

This is a little of what it looked like inside:

The temple looked beautiful in the dark surrounded by smaller lanterns.

It was also neat when the tiny sliver of a crescent moon came out and rose over one of the gates.

One of the walkways was lined with sea creatures this year.  It was butterflies last year.  I loved the jellyfish in the trees.

They looked extra cool near a group of sea turtles!

We walked back down past the octopus...

...and the axolotls, which looked so pretty with their lights.  The back/tail fin changed color, which was so mesmerizing.

The giant jellyfish that was supposedly drum operated (I'm not convinced) was so neat at night.

 

Back closer to the front was this rather creepy eel!

I just liked this picture of the snake in the darkness.

The sunflowers and bees looked even cooler with the dark sky.

I could have posted a dozen more pictures.  There was a walkway lined with penguins, a chameleon, a giant shrimp, Easter Island statues, a mer-lion that's a symbol of Singapore, tons of flowers, and cocoons in the trees--each one a feast for the eyes, especially in the dark.

One of the bummers from last year was that we were inside until closing time, and by the time we left they had turned off the front display so we never got to see it fully illuminated.  This time we made sure to wrap up sooner.  Totally worth it!

It had been another super fun night, but we were pretty happy to hop into bed at my parents!

The next day I went with my mom to the Canal Fest Craft Show while Carter stayed back with my dad.  We both only ended up buying cheesecake mixes from the one vendor because they are so easy to make, and I especially stocked up because Jacob loves them.  While we were there I ran into an old friend from high school who I've only stayed in touch with through Facebook, so that was fun to chat in person.  Otherwise, it was just a rather hot walk--surprisingly hot because the temperature wasn't supposed to be that bad compared to some years, but it still felt really hot!  We looked at a lot of jewelry vendors and sampled a few foods, but that was about it.  Times in the craft show world have definitely changed!  

We looked at both sides of the canal for lunch but opted to walk to a good sub place at the end of the road and eat there.  Bonus points for it being air conditioned!  Afterward we stopped at Kohl's so I could attempt to spend my Kohl's cash without having to drag Carter with me.  No luck, but don't worry, I did better on Sunday at home...haha.  Carter had Wendy's with grandpa for lunch.  He seemed to have had a good time but was still happy to see me.  We packed up and headed out for the other target of our trip: FOUR playgrounds!

The first stop was to Fairmount Park for Carter's reigning favorite thing ever - the "roller coaster" zip line.  It was a little busier that day due to picnics in the park.  We did ride the straight line one quite a bit hoping to wait it out, but no such luck.  He did get a few rides on the good one while taking turns with other kids, but I didn't get to ride it (boo), nor did I take any video.  Maybe next time!

Next up was a school playground in North Tonawanda that I knew was newer.  I liked that the playground was tree-themed since the school is named after a tree--Spruce Elementary School.

Note the trees on the top of the apparatus, and you can't really see it, but there are some tree trunk steps on the other side.

It was a pretty standard playground but we nearly exhausted ourselves trying to cross the rope "vines" in the foreground in the picture above.  Carter spent a lot of time on the zip line as he's trying to master his landing.  He's about a half inch short of reliably hitting the platform and smoothly hopping off, so he's working on that.  Eventually we were getting hotter so we took a minute on a little bench in the shade under the apparatus.  Before we took off, Carter wanted to make a picture on the little spinning cylinder board.  Love this kid.

The next playground was less than five minutes away, just around the corner near the canal at Mayor's Park.  It was a new but pretty standard playground, aside from having double zip lines - one normal one and one accessible one.  There was a big picnic nearby but we still mostly had it to ourselves.  We spent most of our time on the zip line (again) and even figured out that while Carter couldn't push me back on the accessible one (the seat is a different feel than the usual disc seat), he could push me forward and let me go backward!

We didn't spend a ton of time here, but it was nice to check it off our list.  This was the view of the canal from the car, looking between the nearby boathouses.  At least that playground had more shade!

The final stop was a bit further away, about 15 minutes into our drive back home.  It was in Williamsville, near the same area just off the highway where we met my mom to pick up Carter on our way back from Springfield in the spring.  I remembered that Craig's cousin had alerted me to it as a good "big kid" playground, and that was definitely the case.  There was a tiny apparatus for the little kids off to the side, but the big kid part was pretty insane!

It's a little hard to see here, but there's a big round structure in the background.  The middle is a big cargo net, and the outside area is a combination of rubber mats and rope climbs to traverse.  In the foreground is a ninja warrior style area.

This is a better view of the ninja warrior section.  There are crooked balance beams that look like a broken ankle waiting to happen if you jump between then.  There is a rope net climb, and behind that is a straight climbing rope.  Next to that is a series of slanted boards that you're supposed to bound between, and to the far right is something I couldn't even ponder trying.  It was like two wooden boards suspended like monkey bars would be.  I think you just need to swing your legs to propel your body forward and scoot your hands along.  But I definitely don't have the upper body strength for that these days.

The main apparatus was enough of a challenge.  The mats were simple enough--pretty sturdy and not bad to walk along...

But this is what was at the top, and it was way harder than I thought!  You couldn't always just step between them, and it took everything I had to crawl across it to an escape route in the middle!

There were a couple different layers of activities, and underneath were these little suspended discs.

I also liked where the mats were hanging.  It was a lovely little chill out spot where you could rock yourself in a little bit of shade--or use the holes like a ladder to get back up to the top.

Carter did amazing with a couple elements of the ninja warrior course.

I'll admit I was low-key terrified watching him do those things--and even doing things on this playground myself--because now that Disney is in the picture, I will spend the next month living in fear of random injuries or illnesses that could mess up our trip.  But it was quite the place and well worth a stop!

We (of course) got Slurpees to cool off on the drive home, ironically at the same 7-Eleven we stopped at a couple months ago when we did a playground/basketball stop on our way home from Buffalo.  It had been a very busy 24 hours and we were happy to get home and grab dinner before settling in for the night.  Sunday was pretty quiet--I did use my Kohl's cash (and then some) and took care of some things around the house, like finally hanging up Craig's Father's Day gift additions in the basement baseball bathroom and cleaning up some piles of stuff.  It was a good, solid weekend, for sure.  Now it's almost the end of July and we have one more fun must-do coming up before the month closes out--off to the beach we go!

News and Notes, WEEKS in Review Edition

So, before my last post it had been nearly two weeks since I posted.  It's been a blend of nothing notable and yet feeling rather busy.  Two nights a week of soccer and busy work days will do that, I guess.  When we're not at soccer we're doing late dinners after practice or I'm stuck with a grocery run and squeezing in a quick workout.  Jacob is slowly getting better but still taking it one day at a time to recover from a sore knee.  Carter's soccer season is now over but we're plotting his next steps.  Craig still has his college league and I'm still crazy busy at work with no end in sight.

Last Wednesday, on the heels of my dead car battery debacle, I ended up in car trouble again.  On the way to Carter's soccer game, I accidentally hit a rather large rock in the road.  I only saw it at the last second because it was road-colored, and I just couldn't quite avoid it.  I forgot to check my tire before we left the game, but as I started driving I could tell something wasn't right and I pulled off maybe a quarter mile up the road at the school that's home to Carter's favorite playground.  I called AAA, again, and luckily they were super fast and were able to get my spare up and running.  We were back on the road within about a half hour.  Thankfully, Carter and I were still able to do our post-game dinner date--first trip to the Tom Wahl's that took over our beloved Carmine's.  The best part (ha) was that I was already planning to get new tires the following day when my car was scheduled for an oil change.  So, the timing almost literally couldn't have been better.  Little things, folks.

Speaking of little things, my flowers and garden were once my haven for little joys during the pandemic.  This year has been...challenging.  Things are growing, I guess, but it's been one frustration after another.  My seeds wouldn't grow, and what little did got eaten.  New stuff has taken extra long.  Some of my flowers are thriving, but others are slow, getting eaten, aren't getting enough sun, or are getting too much water.  A couple things have randomly died off, other things continue to be deer snacks, and my garden has just started to produce a few things.  My first cuke happened to be growing around the fencing, and something ate off the end before I even knew it was there.  I saved my burning bushes from aphids only to have one being decimated by spider mites.  Some of it is lovely and I'm trying to enjoy what I have, but it's not quite the joy it was a few years ago when I had zinnias coming out my ears, and I'm starting to doubt my skills.  My hydrangea may have been a victim of the late frost, but it's still putting out beauties like this, so there's that.

Oh, and our pool has been sort of chilly for a good chunk of the year and every time we're in there the heated pool basketball games make me nuts.  Our rafts blow out almost every other day right now with the random thunderstorms we've had going on for a couple weeks.  But at least it's been mostly clear--or quick to clear when it's not.  I'll call that a win.

As I mentioned, Carter's soccer season is over.  It was a little crazy near the end because they played a couple games against the other Greece team that featured a couple of his teammates from last year, including one that was a total loose cannon.  That kid grew about six inches and just towers over almost everyone, and is pretty broad as well.  He used his size and it created a huge issue because our team felt beat up on and fought back with elbows of their own, and by the second game it got so bad that our smallest player got a yellow card and they called the game with at least a few minutes left.  But we think the team ended up around 6-4, which was better than last year.  Carter scored an awesome breakaway goal in the last game of the year, which his team won by a bunch, so it was nice to close out the season on a high note.  

Last night ice cream...yum!

Now we're pondering how we're going to proceed.  In my laziness/busyness/overwhelm, we missed most of the soccer camps this summer, but we did manage to schedule him for one this coming week.  Hopefully that gives him a chance to work on his skills and learn from someone new (hopefully someone who knows how to teach, more than his soccer dad coaches have).  Any further soccer will be at the 13U level, which is a little scary given the height differential around this age group.  We saw what we think was a 13U game last weekend, and some of the kids were a head taller, while some still looked so tiny.  He could play this fall to get a preview with a shorter schedule.  However, he also expressed interest in trying baseball.  But those two things would definitely overlap, so now we're considering an August baseball sandlot session.  It would only be about $60 and he might miss the last week when we go to Florida, but for the relatively small investment, quick duration, and the chance to see how he compares to other kids since he has zero playing experience, it might be worth doing just to find out if he could play next year, without ruining the chance to find out if 13U soccer will be a reasonable option next year.  Who knew Carter might be the busier kid for a change?

My work week this week was a bit weird because I had a full-day retreat on Wednesday and our annual baseball outing on Thursday.  The good news about Wednesday was that it was at the art gallery, so at least I got my periodic gallery visit in.  The new sculpture park addition opened last month and it was nice to get a little tour after our day of brainstorming meetings.  But before we took our tour, I noticed this little guy looking down from above the museum entrance.  He's just like the statues in other parts of the sculpture garden and like the ones we saw at the City Museum in St. Louis.  Not sure how I always missed this one, but he's cute!  For the record, they are done by a guy named Tom Otterness, which I learned from the colleague who gave us our tour.

The new rebar rainbow is so fun and colorful.  But it's sort of hard to photograph, so here are three attempts!

This one was interesting.  Of note is that there's only one spot where you can see through to the other side.

This one was bringing some diversity to the works in the park since it was pretty white-male dominated.  I know I saw a sculpture by the same artist somewhere else, but I can't remember where...but they are distinctive, for sure.  My favorite part is that the flame on the torch is shiny and reflective, unlike the rest of the sculpture.

The fanciest piece is this one, creating a built-in "audience" for the performing students at the School of the Arts next door.  

Hard to tell until you get up close, but it's all mosaic!

Around the back, they get torsos!

This piece was like ceramic pottery and is hollow but heavy.  It's so tall, too.

This was a random statue that's sort of trying to make light of a Rodin piece of John the Baptist.  We were talking about interacting with the art so I couldn't help but do this!

I did run into the gallery as well, but not much new to see.  There was an interesting, diverse exhibit of local art, some of which was cool but nothing that knocked my socks off.  Always good to check, though.  Now I'm counting down the days until mid-September when the amazing mirrored room arrives!  It's not the one from my childhood, but rather a different one that normally lives in Toronto, but I am so excited for it!  Carter is going to love it.

Thursday was my work outing to the Red Wings game.  It was supposed to be just Craig and me since the kids complain about everything--Carter gets impatient when adults talk, and Jacob just gets to the point of wanting to move on after a couple hours.  So I planned on not taking them since it's a work event and the expectation is to mingle with colleagues before going off to enjoy the game.  But with them both home they were a bit annoyed they couldn't go, so I had to claim some of the extra tickets and bring them along.  It turned out pretty okay, although they only hung out through lunch and then the three guys headed out into the stadium while I chatted.  Oh, well.  It was a nice day and a fun event.  And it was a super early game so we wrapped up the day with some time in the pool.  

Between those two days and my hybrid schedule having me in and out of the office on the other days, the rest of the week felt very disjointed.  The regular days I had were filled with reporting and analysis made more challenging with only so much motivation amidst the other busy days and a looming fun weekend.  Mentally it was a challenge, but I'm getting through things bit by bit.  And now there's more urgency (and even more distraction) since the vacation plans are emerging.  

Summer is seriously flying.  July is almost over.  The kids have been off a month already and only have about 6-1/2 weeks left of break.  I am panicking a little as I watch my yard and garden get to that hard-to-control stage, which I know is the beginning of the end.  It was like it took forever to get going, and then I blinked and it was out of control--probably because we actually started getting rain, but whatever.  With all of the Disney talk I'm already recalling how our travel week last year was awkward timing for properly wrapping up summer, particularly in the yard, mostly because it was super cold for a couple weeks once we got back.  I felt like I missed the final peak of the garden and flowers while we were gone, and then the cool, rainy weather made it hard to get out there for a few weeks once we were back or get one final push from the plants.  I'm already worrying a little about how I'm going to handle it all this year.  And I can't believe the trip is only about a month away already.  And then it's my birthday and then summer is over.  Ugh.  Not that we don't have a bunch to cram in over these six weeks, but still...it's all going way too fast.  It's been a weird summer, too, with both kids home and Jacob not being able to be as deep into his basketball stuff.  I think we're all probably a bit discombobulated, and having to get Carter off somewhere every morning this week will probably be a bigger challenge than we thought after all of this relative laziness.  

Anyway, like I said, we still have a lot to cram in, and at least Carter and I had a fun 24 hours this weekend that was strangely similar to the same weekend last year.  That post coming soon...