water park | here i am

Be careful how much you read into other people’s photos or stories or headlines. Things aren’t always the way they seem and I think we need to remember this as we journey together through social media and the news.

I am a true idealist. I have big dreams, always. I create playlists in my head about how I think things should be.

Today I took the kids to Raging Waters because this was the wish of the little one. He wanted his siblings to spend the day with him and play and this was his dream, since he had a season pass. We made it happen and here is proof:

As I was taking this picture after we ate lunch, I was thinking of the morning and how the big ones protested. They didn’t want to go to a water park today. I know, crazy thought, but true. Who has to beg to bring kids to a water park to hang out and enjoy outdoor adventures together? This is ridiculous, I know. But this was my truth and you’d never know from this picture of my happily ever after moment. We are perfectly imperfect, remember?

I think this picture symbolizes probably a lot of other moments we see on our screens. Everything looks happy yet there were arguments and frustrations before the snapshot. LB and I used to call these our Norman Rockwell moments where we had to take 50 shots to capture the one moment where we all looked happy at the same time so that we could remember what we envisioned in our heads. This makes me laugh and I hope you can share this connection and say, “Yeah!! That’s so true and real and funny!”

We actually were enjoying THIS moment. It was just the journey getting here that was frustrating, but of course that wouldn’t make for a happy story.

I did actually learn some things today about raising teenagers. I learned I need to make quicker decisions. I learned that even when they aren’t interested, they sometimes are. And I learned to practice patience. They all came around and we had a great day together, living in the sunshine.

Life is good.

Who would have thought when we decided to move to Holland that we would get to discover so many other parts of the world? I Am amazed!!

Today we spent the entire day at the Atlantis Hotel with Patti Beth and her family. We started off at the Aqua Adventure water park and stayed there until it closed at sundown. We all had huge smiles floating down the lazy river, falling down huge slides, and dropping in on the sharks. Everyone was warm and happy in the water.

Afterwards, we explored the Lost Chambers, an aquarium inside the hotel that was amazing. Every display was interesting to see and watching the sharks swim with schools of fish was mesmerizing. There were a few touch tanks where we touched sea stars, horse shoe crabs, and small rays.

The hotel itself is like Disneyland. I especially loved the Chihuly glass display in the lobby. The kids and the adults were all having fun together and still wanted to hang out, so we ventured out to the Royal Pool and let the kids go night swimming until they closed it down. It was a gorgeous warm night, so we chose to sit outside and enjoy a Mexican dinner together.

We enjoyed our day in the sun – not too hot and definitely not cold.

Life is good.