#435 - Inside Wild Island

Last summer, TLG and I spent a day at the water park at Wild Island in Sparks. It was awesome. I've been meaning to post this "new thing" for a while now, but a couple of weekends ago, TLG attended a birthday party inside the Coconut Bowl area at Wild Island. Having never been there ourselves, we all went... and were highly impressed! The main attraction of the party was an indoor, 3-story structure with foam balls, launchers, slides, stairs, and play areas. TLG and some of his friends from daycare were all over this place while the adults watched from outside. At one point, I went in to see why TLG was standing all alone, and when I discovered TLG and his friends were too short to put the foam balls in the launchers very well, I stayed a few minutes to help load it up. (It was lots of fun, but I didn't want to be one of those hovering moms so I tried not to stay too long.) After a pizza lunch, TLG and my wonderful hubby went with some of the other families outside to try the go-carts. My two boys rode on the big cars together, with TLG grinning the whole time his daddy drove. Then it was on to the little cars, which TLG was plenty big enough to drive by himself. TLG and the birthday boy had a race in the little cars, which TLG handily won (probably because he is taller and could reach the pedals better). I do hope we'll have a chance to take TLG back here again before too long. What fun!

#434 - Swimming Lesson

Today was The Little Guy's first swimming lesson at Silver Bear Swim School. We took him down to see the school last Saturday and bought him a pair of goggles when we signed him up... he's worn the goggles in the bathtub every night since then! As it turns out, he's the only kid currently signed up for his level of class, so he had a private 30-minute class today with his teacher Amanda. We arrived half-an-hour before class started to get him changed and watch another class in progress, which was fun. TLG was so excited, and talking all about his teacher and what he was going to learn. When it was TLG's turn, he got right in. (We got to watch everything through the glass window.) They tried floating, putting his face in the water, and played a game picking up toys off a ledge. TLG even was able to push himself up onto the side of the pool by himself! We were so proud. And the best part: He's even more excited to come back next week.

#433 - Exercise Partner?

This evening, The Little Guy helped me exercise in our living room to my new Dancing with the Stars DVD. I recently purchased the DVD with Kym, Lacey and Dmitry that teaches the swing, jive and quickstep. TLG and I tackled the quickstep, and boy was it fun to do it together! For the first few minutes, TLG was even trying to do some of the moves/kicks/spins, which was pretty cute. After that, he started bouncing in circles around me while I did the dance moves. Then we both got frustrated and just made up our own dance moves. (I probably could have done the dance moves, but he was just so excited to be dancing that it was much more fun!)

#432 - Quick, Quick!

I was one of those nerdy kids who loved playing with the typing tutor game on my Atari growing up. (Was it Mavis Beacon? Something like that?) Anyway, I have discovered a new typing game online where you can race other people to see how quick you can type: TyprX Typing Races. My average is hovering between 88 wpm and 90 wpm, but my record is 108 wpm. You don't have to race people, either, if you'd rather just type and see your time... this is a huge time sink for me, I don't know why I've always loved to type fast but I could easily waste half a day on these races.

#431 - T-Ball

Finally, we've had some good weather. Today TLG wanted to break out one of his new Christmas gifts: a T-ball set from his Aunt B. We set it all up and found that he's actually pretty good at hitting the (plastic) ball with the (oversized) bat when someone is just pitching to him... but when you don't have a grown-up around to pitch, the T-ball stand will work very well too. He can get the ball all the way across the yard (no balls into the neighbors' yards or anything yet). Thanks, Aunt B!

#430 - Lady with the Painted Veil

For lunch today, I joined some friends at the Cafe Musee at the Nevada Museum of Art. Afterwards, we took a quick tour of some of the headline exhibitions going on there, including seeing Raphael's masterpiece painting, "The Woman with the Veil," painted in approximately 1516. It was pretty spectacular, seeing something in such good condition from so many years ago. The woman seemed to be glowing in the painting, and the longer I looked, the more details I saw. They had this painting in a darkened room, with no other distractions, just the one painting under lights with a security guard nearby. We also saw an Italian triptech (a three-paneled painted altar piece from the 15th century); a set of quilts from Gee's Bend, Alabama; and a gallery of Amphora pottery pieces. There was an artist there setting up a future exhibition of statues made of furniture that's been stripped down and reassembled into animals, which looked fun and interesting. We also saw two groups of students on field trips. I'm not usually one to spend time in an art museum, but I really enjoyed seeing the different exhibits, and they seemed to have something for everyone.

#429 - Slugbug

Did you ever play Slugbug? We used to play a lot, I think I even remember playing in our carpool - maybe in high school? It's where you see the VW Beetles while you're traveling, you say "Slugbug!" and you get to hit/slap/punch someone else if you beat them to it. Well, today, TLG and I were driving around doing errands, and I taught him to play Slugbug. I don't know what made me think of it, it's been years since I even thought of the game. TLG wasn't very good at finding the cars, but he thought the game was hysterical! He even chased me up the eisles of the stores, yelling Slugbug! and slapping me on the arm. It was fun to share something so silly with him and it made me remember lots of good times with my carpool buddies.