Castaway Bay

Disclosure: Castaway Bay provided overnight accommodations and water park passes, as well as four day passes to give away to one reader.  All opinions are my own.

This has officially been the snowiest January we’ve ever had in Northwest Ohio.  And while I love the snow, I don’t love the bitter cold.  Today is our sixth unexpected day off of school this month, with number seven all but assured tomorrow.  The kids are stir-crazy, as you might imagine.  So when Castaway Bay invited us to join them for some family fun and a blissful 82 degrees, we started packing our bags. 

We arrived to a warm fire and a huge pirate ship, checked in, and grabbed our Island Times.  Each day the staff puts out this newsletter with all of the resort’s activities, be sure to grab one at the front desk!  In it, you’ll find lots of children’s activities like face painting, story time with Snoopy, and times that you can catch the Peanuts Gang in the lobby for a photo or just a hug.

 

 

The water park was great.  I loved the layout, open and in a big circle with one monitored entrance in and out, I felt really comfortable finding Dave quickly when we headed to separate areas with the kids.  There is a large toddler pool with both small and slightly bigger water slides as well as fountains with a light spray.  There is a big wave pool, several medium and larger sized water slides, and a huge waterslide that you tackle in a raft.  There is the family funhouse full of shooting water, a big pool for water basketball and fun things like the cargo net crossing where bigger kids can try their hand at making it across the pool on floating rafts.  There is also an indoor/outdoor hot tub that seats almost 100 people.  I saw toddlers and 80 year olds alike, there was a little something for everyone and it’s extremely family friendly.

I would also like to note that in every single pool I paid attention to the safety issue, something that is really important to me.  What I saw was a hyper-attentive lifeguard staff, and life jackets available for anyone who might need one.  Obviously, that doesn’t make up for a lack of parental supervision, but I felt very comfortable with the level of staff to visitors.  The lifeguards were really paying attention to everything going on in the pools.

 

Want more?  Chat with me on Twitter.  Hang out with me on Facebook. See all of my Pinterest lovelies.  Peep the latest on Instagram.  For more local suggestions, check out my list of 50 Things to Do with Kids in Toledo, Ohio!  

Castaway Bay wanted to include you in the fun, so I’m giving away FOUR day passes to the waterpark, a $116 value!  Leave a comment telling me your favorite snow day activity and enter the Rafflecopter giveaway.

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I Don’t Like You, Mama.

Well it happened.  My whole six and a half years of motherhood has been blessedly free of this one until now.

I don’t like you, Mama!

There she is, Miss Tate, all two and a half years of her, telling me just that.  Her brother has probably thought it, but he’s never said it. 

All because I wouldn’t read her book.  The book her father had just finished reading to her, while she was stalling and saying goodnight, already a half an hour past bedtime.  Worst mother in the world, right?

Rationally, you know she’s just pissy and tired.  But oh, doesn’t it feel like a punch in the gut to hear those words directed at you? 

She followed up the next day with, “You my best girl Mama, my best girl in da whole universe,” and made me imagine that maybe we still have a few years before I’m hearing that she dislikes me on the regular.  At least, I sure hope so.

And Tate, even when you don’t like me?  You’re my best girl too.

Just Enough.

 

Mornings are tough for me.  I haven’t ever rolled out of bed Miss Mary Sunshine.  I haven’t ever been referred to as a morning person either.  I can fake it with the best of them, but if we’re being truthful, I’m much better after ten.  By then, I’ve had a cup of coffee, some time to wake up, and a minute to get myself together.  

Typically, I hit the snooze button twice.  OK.  Three times.  I roll out of bed bleary-eyed and stumble my way through breakfast making and lunchbox filling.  Then there is the pushing and prodding the kids to hurry up, reminders for them to feed Monty his breakfast, and to get teeth brushed… we’ve got to get moving!  Those boots are on the wrong feet, Tate.  Finn, don’t forget your backpack. 

On bad days, they are sometimes picking on each other and arguing or worse, whining and I’m struggling to keep my shit together so I don’t start our day yelling like a maniac.  Those are the days that I spend feeling guilty or internalizing that I am the worst mother in the universe {of my own mind} and not at all fit for raising little human beings.  Those are the melodramatic, worst days ever that just compound and beat me into the ground and make me wish I could go back to bed until they are eighteen and off to college.

But today wasn’t a typical morning or the worst day ever.  This was a magical morning made of unicorn tears and Millennium Falcon shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  

The universe seems to put just enough of these days in my path to make me intensely thankful for motherhood.

I Have a Blog? Alternate Title: I Hate Anything with an Umlaut.

My name is Michelle and I’ve been missing for three weeks.

 

 

Oh, hello.  Um.  I missed you guys?  I was soaking up having the kids around, Dave, Christmas, my best friend, extended family and just taking a vacation.  I just hadn’t intended it to be an extended vacation, but there it is.  Extended.  BAM.

There is this whole blogging thing that it’s a little like fight club.  You’re not supposed to talk about blogging in and of itself unless of course your blog is about blogging, then you’re supposed to ONLY talk about blogging.  But I’m not really a rules kind of girl except in the car lane at school because non-rules followers in the car lane make me irate.  There is parking all over and willy nilly dropping off and obnoxious assholes who turn left when there is clearly a sign saying not to turn left.

But here on the blog?  Eh.  Left turn away, suckas.

Blogging is incredible.  It has afforded me all kinds of opportunities like having my stuff on Queen Latifah’s site, trips across the country, getting mentioned by people like the food editor of the Associated Press, being featured on Life Hacker, working with some fantastic companies, getting courted by Huffington Post, and meeting some of the best people in the universe, some of which I now call friends.  It’s flattering, it’s awesome, and it makes me all glowy, but for me, having all of you to talk to every day, that’s where it’s at.  Your comments keep me laughing, your emails make me all choked up, and your stories are as varied as Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.  I like it.  Blogging, that is, and you too.  But, it is a fuckton of work and sometimes I very much need a break to sit around mostly camera-less and just take a mental picture instead. 

Only… to take a break or a vacation as a blogger, you’re supposed to work four times as hard and schedule out posts to appear like you’re there.  This is the part we’re not supposed to mention because it’s supposed to be this magical thing where *** poof! *** pretty things appear, you actually sleep while simultaneously making yourself available to social media 24/7 and the words flow like Natty Light at the college party Dave once took me to when I was 26 years old. 

Note to any college age boys out there: if you are lucky enough to date a woman 3 years older than you, with a job, an apartment and clearly fabulous, you should probably not take her to any keg-ers.  You might end up with a wife.

Then of course after your extended break, there is just this awkward figuring out what to say to rejoin the land of the living.  And yaaaaaawn, do I really need to get out of bed?  Plus, you know that people don’t want to hear that you’ve been sitting around playing with your kids with their elflocked hair and staying in your pajamas until afternoon while drinking all the coffee in the universe and snuggling with your husband.  There was also some Harry Potter reading, much Lego building, My Little Pony Equestria Girls watching, and figuring out to do with all of this snow.

 

Yep.

So here I am in a graceless sort of way, hoping you’re still reading, still in my pajamas, day three of being house-bound, day eighteen of school break, and hating pfeffernüsse.  Mostly because Dave loves it and eats it non-stop for weeks around Christmas and also partly because it has an umlat which makes writing pfeffernüsse a pain in the ass.  I’d promise that next time I’ll be better and schedule out those posts so we can all pretend that I’m here, but you and I both know, I probably won’t. 

I hope you’re ok with that.

Just how cold is it in your neck of the woods?