Week of girls

My two nieces, aged 10 and 11, have been visiting, so the young girl population doubled in our house this week. The girls are wonderfully sweet and enjoyed playing with their little cousin, Rachel, even though she's only four years old. At least they did for the first five days. I am sensing a little bit of frustration today, but the visit is over in a few hours, so that's okay. In fact, I am amazed it took this long for Rachel to get on their nerves. And what's nice is that even though I can sense Rachel is bugging them a little bit, Rachel is clueless because the girls are so nice about it. So props go to my brother and sister and their spouses for raising such good kids.

We started the week with a day at Adventureland. That place is a lot more fun than I expected it would be. I grew up going to Great America in Gurnee, Illinois, so I admit to being a little bit snobbish about amusement parks. Plus, "Adventureland" struck me as a kiddie name so I wasn't expecting much. (It's not as bad as Kiddieland, which is a mini-amusement park in Illinois). Anyway, Adventureland has three great water rides: the log ride, a rafting water slide, and a raging rapids raft adventure. I missed the log ride as I had to stay with Samantha, but the girls and Sharon enjoyed it a lot. The other two rides were lots of fun, too.



The roller coasters are pretty decent as well. The Dragon had a couple of loops which my older niece and I enjoyed. It reminded me of the Demon from Six Flags sans corkscrew.



The Tornado was pretty good too. Both nieces ventured onto that one although the younger one looked scared speechless. I think she liked it okay, but she refused to do it again. I disliked the Outlaw because it knocks you around a lot. My head ached after that ride. Not worth it at all.

There were plenty of rides that Rachel enjoyed, too. Only a couple were appropriate for 1 1/2 year old Samantha; I think she had the least fun of any of us. Rachel said the highlight was the bumper cars. She and I rode together. We probably should have done that again, but we ran out of time. We were there from 11 am to 8:30 pm! A long, fun day.

Tuesday was all about the Coralville pool. We met a friend of Rachel's at the pool. That gave her someone to play with and allowed the older girls to enjoy the pool more freely. The older cousin really enjoyed the water slides (as did I). She's got a bit of daredevil in her.



On Wednesday, it was soccer. Rachel and her cousins versus me and... the tree. Hey, the tree blocked a shot! Rachel got to show her moves and see her older cousin demonstrate some new ones. I ended up out of breath and sweaty. I am getting too old for this.

On Thursday, we visited Sharon's work - a local TV station. The younger cousin was thrilled to meet someone who was actually on TV. That would be Kevin Corizzo of KGAN TV news.... um, fame.



We pointed out to her that every member of my family has been in TV commercials, but apparently that didn't hold a candle to meeting a guy in the lunchroom and then seeing him on TV five minutes later. Thursday night, Sharon took the girls to the mall and bought them Iowa shirts. They wore them today when we went to the Iowa Children's Museum.

And now they're playing while we wait for my sister to arrive and shepherd the girls home. It's been a fun week, but I am beat! How did my mom handle five kids on a daily basis?

You know, you never really appreciate your mom til you have your own kids. Then it all makes sense.