Sandy Lake Park

We had a small Brooks family "reunion" over July 4th weekend.  I hesitate to even use the word reunion since it was just James's dad and his brother and their kids and grandkids.  It was more like a family get together, but we've never all been together since everyone is kind of spread out, and reunion sounds so much more fun and exciting than get together, so we just went with it.

During our weekend reunion, we spent one morning at Sandy Lake Park.  I remember going there with middle school choir or something, but couldn't really recall any details, which isn't surprising since I have difficulty remembering details from 18 days ago, so I'd be dreaming to think that I'd remember something from 18 years back.  When we got there, though, I did remember something about it...it's a poor man's Six Flags...a really poor man, but it was actually the perfect place for the age range of kids we had with us.

When we first got there we all rode the merry go round together, and Hunter was true to himself and had zero desire to get on.  We eventually coaxed forced him into sitting next to James in one of the seats while I held Charlotte on a horse.  (And y'all.  I don't know if I've ever been that dizzy.  I'm dizzy just thinking about it.)  After Hunter's reluctance to ride the carousel, we realized we'd probably have to force him on every ride for his own good, because he always ends up having fun after the initial shock wears off....or so we thought.

The first ride that sweet boy had to ride solo was the cars.  I carried him over and gently shoved him in the seat, promising that he'd have so much fun!  But once the cars started, he started looking at us with this face...

I got really nervous, and then he started yelling, "I want to stop!" over and over until he started crying.  And that, of course, was my cue to start crying, and James's cue to tell me to turn around if I was going to cry...hey, somebody's gotta hold it together for all of us.  H eventually calmed down and was able to enjoy it this much...

And that was enough for me to be proud of him:)

Then we went over to the train.  Sweet cousin Brooke saved a seat for Hunter up front with her and Jenna...

The engineer was a little busy sucking out every ounce of nicotine from his cig, so we waited...

and waited...

and finally took off for the most exciting train ride ever;)

Next were the boats.  We thought we'd put Hunter with Jonathan who was his buddy for the weekend, but he was still pretty nervous...

but Jonathan quickly showed him how to ring the bell...

and Hunter took that job very seriously for the rest of the ride...

Then we headed back to the cars, which Hunter did great on.  He was becoming a pro at these carnival rides....

Still a little serious, but could he ever steer...

(Just for some proof that she was there...and proof that I love my kids equally and try to even out the picture taking torture as much as possible)...

The last ride Hunter rode were these fish that went up and down pretty quickly.  I still had to do some serious persuading to get H inside one of them, but he was calm enough to pose for a picture before the ride started....

Now there was a reason this was H's last ride for the day.  He lost complete trust in his parents after the traumatic experience that those fish put him through.   There are no words, so I'll just leave you with two photos that say it all...

Tragic.  And yes, I was laughing throughout the entire thing, but I did try my best to conceal it...which is more than we can say for James who laughed harder and louder than I've seen him laugh since we watched The Hangover.  I'm really making us come across as the most wholesome, loving parents ever, huh?  Don't judge us. 

After the fish exhaustion, it was pony time.  Brooke rode...

and Carson with Aunt Melanie...

and Char with me...

and Ethan with Larkin  (Ethan's just 3 days younger than Char, and they had so much fun together!)...

and my favorite little boy in the entire world took a rest break in order to recover from the trauma that had just been inflicted on him...

I have a bad feeling that days like these are the kind of thing that send you to a lifetime of therapy for your parents' inadequacy in raising you.  We're just hoping his memory formation hasn't kicked in yet.