Yeah, it’s only the start of August, but for my kids school will start early this year (in mid-August).
Drive-In
We just got back from Vacation and already it’s time for us to go on our last Drive-In theater experience for the year. Boy, this year really flew by…
Another reasons that we want to go now instead of some later movie is because “The Smurfs” are playing, and we thought it would be something that entire family would enjoy. So far, it’s pretty cool (I’m watching it and typing at the same time). I still have a hard time imagining Katy Perry as Smurfette, to me it seems like Jeniffer Aniston would be the more likely pick for that role.
Well, the movie has just concluded and to my surprise, it was much better than I expected. Admittedly, I came in with very low expectations…
I’m somewhat sad that this is the last movies this year that we will see at the Drive-In, but at least I’m not disappointed with the quality, it was a great conclusion!
Today, I decided to take a closer look at the wiring of the speaker system on the Drive-In poles. I was lucky because the particular pole that we used had it’s wires exposed. Based on the wiring, I’m guessing that it’s like an old christmas light string, where if one of the wires gets cut, the entire row goes out. What a fascinating system that had to use back in the old days.
Well, I’m back at home now, everybody had a great time.
In the past, we’ve had kid parties at mini-golf and other kid places like Chuck E Cheese’s. This year we decided to try something different!
Boating Party Idea
This year we asked my son what kind of kid’s party he wanted and he said he wanted a Boating Birthday Party. “Wow, that’s a great idea” I said, while thinking “the only problem is that we don’t own any boats”…
Yeah, we have friends that have both boats and jet skis, but I can’t really tell them, “Okay, my son wants a boating birthday party so I’m going to invite people you don’t know to use your boats and jet skis at this certain lake…, is that cool?“! That certainly wouldn’t go over well with me, so I can imagine it would go over well with them either…
Luckily my son’s grandfather recently purchased jet skis and since he’s a great guy, he offered to bring over his jet skis and help out with the party. Next, my wife called her good friend that has a nice newer shine boat and asked if she could bring her kids and come to the party. The friend said she would do one better and bring their boat for everybody to use too.
Boating
So my son’s boating party had all of the necessary equipment lined up for use. Since this is the first year trying this, we decided to keep the list of kids that he could invite to a minimum so that we could test the waters so to speak (no pun intended). So my son picked four of his most solid friends, with such friends, we could have some party fumbles and they wouldn’t really mind. So we had a great pilot test group of friends for our first boating birthday party.
Notes For The Next Boating Birthday Party
While we were successful at getting the equipment lined up, there were times when all the adults were socializing on the beach. During this time the kids were bored and wanted beach toys to build castles. Normally we have such toys, but both my wife and I forgot them this time.
Well, that’s a major mistake because the kids don’t want to listen to adults at a party, so I had to jumped in the car and went out searching for some beach toys for the party.
It took me 20 minutes to locate a store that carried the sand toys and then another 10 minutes to get back to the beach. While not a party stopper, this was a major miss on our part and something that needs to be considered for any future boating party.
Boating Party Mishaps
No, we didn’t have any accidents or crashes! But our friends with the boat had to leave early because they had to travel to Virginia that day for a small vacation! So the kids didn’t get to go tubing in the boat much, but it was still fun for the short time that they were able to. Big thanks to our friends for coming out and adding to the fun by bring their boat! This wasn’t expected and was a great treat for the kids.
After our friends had gone, one of the jet skis mysteriously stopped working after we turned it off at the beach! Oh no, now we were down to one jet ski! The kids all took two additional turns, then we had to tow the broken jet ski back to the dock to be loaded back onto the trailer.
We were luck that the four friends that he asked to come didn’t complain and just made the most of the time they had out in the lake with the jet skis and boat!
Jet ski
Boating Party Conclusion
We had some rough moments, but overall, the friends had an awesome time (not of they had gone boating before). Asked if they want to try it again next year, all enthusiastically said “YES”!!!
I think if we didn’t have such family and friends to have the party, we might have been able to rent the jet skis (and maybe even the boat for all I know). While it might be expensive if you rent them for too long a period, it might not be that bad if you only use them or an hour or two.
I think it would be a blast to run the jet skis on the ocean someday. Perhaps we’ll rent them when we are on vacation this year…
I’m happy my son and his friends had a great day, life is good!
My daughter went to Girl Scout camp this summer (which was really just 3 hours after 6:00pm for the week), I can’t even tell you how much it cost because it wasn’t even a blip on my financial radar.
I did notice that each night my daughter brought something home and was always excited about what went on at camp and seemed very happy about it. This registered on my ‘how is my daughter” radar, but I just smiled and went about whatever had my attention before noticing.
Yesterday evening was the last day of Girl Scout camp, and my son and I had to go watch Girl Scout skits (my wife had already signed up to help at the camp so she was there by default). My son said he was going to bring his new iPod touch (he loved that thing), because he expected it to be boring (as did I truthfully).
So we went to our local park for the Girl Scout’s skits event. The park is beautiful, with large established trees and a very picturesque pond and a massive but classic, rustic pavilion that is made of huge logs. Right away, the setting instantly reduced any stress that one would experience, so I was feeling very positive about the event right away.
Next my son and I waited for the entertainment to begin (which it wouldn’t until 15 minutes later), I looked over at him as he sat in one of our foldout canvas “soccer” chairs, and as expected he was already playing on his iPod touch. This made me smile because the iPod touch was expensive and I was glad to see he was enjoying it. Money well spent!
Shortly there after, the Girl Scouts started their skits. At first, we both were not too interested, but then we realized that the skits were humorous in form. So while I paid attention the entire time (clapping after each skit to show support), I was surprised to see my son start to listen too. About 10 minutes in he turned off his iPod touch and started to laugh along with the skits too. To my surprise, most people in the audience started laughing too.
While most of the skits were things I’ve seen or heard before, the enthusiasm and sheer happiness each girl put into the skits made it extra special somehow. So while most of the skits were cheesy, I ended up having a truly feel-good experience. And I think most of the audience had the same experience, including my 11-year-old son.
Another awesome experience was seeing how extremely happy my daughter was afterwords! After the skits were done, she ran over and gave me a hug; she was very happy! Then the next 15 minutes she was jumping around and running around the small group I was in. It was very cute in that special way that a young girl that is excited and happy can be.
I can’t vouch for every Girl Scout event, but that one event on that one night was well worth the time to see.
We’re at the local Drive-In theater, and having a ball!
Drive-In
It’s a Tuesday night and there are a total of only 15 cars in this huge drive-in parking lot. We paid $16 to get in and it’s almost like we own the place! There are mostly cute families with their kids, the atmosphere is very quaint and small townish.
I’m watching my kids slide down an old sliding board that looks even older than I am. I went up to the playground to watch my son push smaller kids on the merry-go-round, when I decided to go check out the screen. Surprisingly, it was made of very thin metal that has been painted white. I don’t know what I thought it was originally made of, but I was surprised how thin the metal was…
I’m going to pay for it tomorrow, but for now it’s quite the experience.
Oh no, we listened to the movie via our car radio, and since we watched two movies back-to-back, our car battery died. I was wondering why the car beside me started her car during intermission (now I know)! As I was getting ready to ask a nearby car for a jump, my wife told me that the drive-in attendant said they have a battery charger for jumping the cars.
So I walked up and tried the door called “entrance” with no luck, it was locked. I then walked around the building and found a door that had a light on behind it. I knocked and got lucky as an older woman told me about the battery charger and gave it to me to jump my car. It started the first try!
It’s now 2:30 am, and I have to get up at 5:45 am, it’s going to be a rough day tomorrow, but it was worth it!
You see, we like for our kids to have the experiences, and this is one of them! Next we’ll have to go to our annual “camp out on the lawn” orchestra concert, then camping…
The Drive-In and other unique experiences are always well worth it.
