The Saturday 7

Another exciting week in the books!

1. I decided to give Wordle a try. It's all over my facebook feed lately, and you know I have FOMO. Plus, word games are kind of my forte. I still don't really get the hype . . . The thing that trips me up is that you only get to play once a day. What kind of game is that? If I can't binge, I'm not interested. 

2. I've fallen for a few facebook ads lately that had me shelling out money in an attempt to beautify myself. I tried two of them out last Saturday.

I can't remember what this one is called. Basically, it's a blackhead treatment. You roll this green goo on your face with something that looks like deodorant, and it's supposed to pull all the blackheads out of your skin, leaving it glowing and blemish free. While I was waiting for the magic to happen, I played Words with Friends on my phone, and this ad popped up:

STOP STALKING ME, PHONE!

Anyway, my skin looked nothing like the people in that ad. Zero blackheads popped up. Not sure if that means I have naturally flawless skin, or if I got scammed by the green deodorant. 🤔

3. Later that night, I tried out the Cozy Curlers for the first time. I'm so desperate to find a way to curl my hair quickly and easily. 

They were easy to use, and surprisingly easy to sleep in. But this is what my hair looked like the next morning . . .

Frizzy and kinky, with a few random curls here and there. I'm going to keep trying. I probably just need better hair products or curler placement or something. Maybe someday I'll figure out those effortless bouncy waves everyone else seems to have.

4. The biggest excitement of our week was a trip to Great Wolf Lodge! Months ago, my brother alerted me to a Groupon deal and asked if we wanted to go with him and his family. So we've been looking forward to it for a long time. We headed up Thursday night and let the kids skip school on Friday. None of us has ever been to GWL before, so we didn't really know what to expect. We didn't get there 'til 7:30 on Thursday and the water park closes at 8, but Justin and the kids quickly threw on their swimsuits and got to play with Luke and his kids for a little while at least.

My parents came too! 

I miss my Google Pixel! It took such good pictures! This is the best I got of the crew with my dumb new phone.

Sadly, that night Ruby got really sick, so they had to go home Friday morning. 😭 I'm so bummed we didn't get to spend the day with them at the water park, but my kids had an absolute blast. Of course, it took a while to get Lena and Levi to brave the slides, but once they overcame their fears, they loved them. (Levi never did do the big tube slides, but he was content with the other ones.) We played in the water park from 11-5:30! I didn't get very many good pictures because my phone isn't waterproof, but here are a few:

Lena loved this ropes course thingy. She did it over and over and over and was awesome at it. #muscles

Levi was super nervous at first, but eventually got the hang of it and loved it as much as Lena!

Forcing myself to get in pictures.

Lucy was my wateslide buddy. I hate roller coasters but love waterslides! 

Levi loved the lazy river, but he's really bad at the "lazy" part. He just wanted to drive either Justin or me around as fast as he could, being sure to dunk us under each water feature.

Lucy coming out of the green slide and Lena blue. 

Another crazy thing to note: while we were there, we ran into a group of Justin's college soccer teammates and their families! What are the odds? Haha. 

5. After carrying tubes up stairs and chasing Levi around the water park for hours, my fat old body had had enough. By 4:30, I finally sat down and enjoyed some people watching. These are my observations: 

• People spend money like crazy. Haha. I mean, I'm right there with them, to a point. We bought the expensive meals in the waterpark for our kids, I got myself a big ole Dunkin' Donuts coffee for breakfast, we paid for a hotel stay/waterpark tickets. But there are so many optional extras at GWL that are $$$. I'm just amazed (and jealous) that people can afford to drop hundreds in the arcade, to let their kids do the in-house Build a Bear, to pay for the Magic Wand thing, and to spring for the fun kids' rooms with bunk beds and fancy perks. This isn't an indictment of people who choose to spend their money that way. It just amazes me that so many people are able to spend like that. Haha. 

• People have friends that go on vacation with them. Justin's college buddies are case in point, but they definitely weren't the only ones. I saw lots of friend groups while we were there. Yes, that was what we intended our trip to be until Ruby got sick, but we're family. Even when we had friends with kids of similar ages as ours, we never went on vacations together! Either we were all too poor or we couldn't get vacation time at the same time or nobody actually made a big enough effort to organize anything. I'm sad my kids never had that experience. I suppose it's not too late. Want to be my friend? Have kids in the 5-12 age range? Can you afford GWL? I can only afford one night, and no fancy extras. 😂 

• I was also shocked by how many moms have such smooth, flat bellies. Haha. Even if I lost 50 pounds, my stomach would never look like that. How do all these women with multiple kids not have stretch marks? Or as Libby once so eloquently described my post-pregnancy belly: elephant butt skin.

Google image of elephant skin or actual picture of my stomach? You'll never know.

6. We got home last night around 8:30. The kids were so tired, they actually fell right to sleep, and no one was up before 9:00 this morning!! That's unheard of for Levi! I spent the morning battling crowds at the Once Upon a Child 90% off clearance sale. I stood in line for exactly an hour, but got $150 worth of clothes for $15! (#worthit) Then, this evening, my cousin Esther and I went to see the Redeeming Love movie. Francine Rivers' book by the same name is absolutely iconic in the Christian Fiction world. If you ask in any of the Christian Fiction facebook groups for people's all-time favorite books, Redeeming Love is going to populate a huge percentage of the responses. This week, I logged my 700th book as read on Goodreads, and I would say out of all of them that Redeeming Love is my favorite. In case you don't know, it's an allegory of the biblical book of Hosea (which is in itself an allegory). It's a hard book to read, because the subject matter is not for the faint of heart, but the redemptive elements are so incredibly powerful - both as a romance novel, and as an image of God's mercy and love for us. I could wax poetic for hours, but it's already after midnight, so suffice it to say I was so excited to find out it was being made into a movie - and produced in part by the author! I loved the movie, but I don't think it's appropriate for all audiences. Here's the review I shared with a facebook friend who was curious about the movie as compared to the book:

Ok, my two cents after seeing it: I wouldn't want my husband or sons to watch it. I would also probably be uncomfortable letting my teenage daughter watch it. But as a married woman, I really liked it. It stayed very true to the book. And sure, it doesn't come right out and say, "Hey, our relationship kind of imitates that of Christ and the church. It sure could be an allegory. Actually, have you ever read Hosea?" But there are powerful themes of forgiveness, unconditional love, free will vs. sovereignty, undeserved grace, etc. I was a little disappointed in the sex scenes and the very-near nudity. The sex scenes were between the married couple, but it was a bit much, and I was uncomfortable watching it in the theater. So maybe watch it yourself or with some girlfriends when it comes out on streaming services and you can fast forward through those scenes. The ending is so powerful. It made me cry, and I am NOT a crier.

7. A couple more memes to end with, then I'm off to wrap birthday presents!

This is exactly how Levi sleeps on my head at 3:00 a.m.

C'mon, Karen! Cheese is life.