Friday: Household Enjoyable Day at Diamond D Ranch
Friday’s enjoyable took us to Diamond D Ranch in Jacksonville. I used to be decided to search out one thing distinctive and animal-related to do as a part of Chase’s birthday celebration and was thrilled when a deep dive on Google lead me to Diamond D Ranch. We majorly lucked out as a result of the ranch hosted certainly one of their Household Enjoyable Days on Friday so we nabbed tickets and kicked off celebrating our virtually 8-year-old on Friday morning.
The farm was a lot greater than a working ranch. It was a slam-dunk place to go to for younger youngsters and we had no hassle spending greater than two hours immersing ourselves within the actions.
The horse rides had been the largest hit with the two-year-old toddlers in our group whereas Chase liked fishing and Ryder and Callie (5 and virtually 5-years-old) appeared to like the wagon experience and feeding the cows, buffalo and goats most.
It was an overcast and drizzly day which majorly labored in our favor since we didn’t should cope with overheated youngsters within the intense Florida summer season warmth this time of 12 months. Apart from animal-related enjoyable, the children additionally appeared to get pleasure from enjoying in a small corn pit, bouncing in bounce homes and digging into shave ice on the way in which out!
Saturday: Celebrating Chase at Journey Touchdown + Shipwreck Water Park
Chase’s birthday fell on a Saturday this 12 months (the birthday jackpot!) and with warmth advisories within the space, we knew it was too scorching to do a lot exterior aside from water-related actions. We thought he’d love a day on the native Jacksonville Seashore water park and man oh man had been we proper! Chase did each single water slide he was large enough to do, swam for hours within the lazy river and wave pool and had the largest smile on his face all day lengthy. I can already inform 8 goes to be such a enjoyable age as his birthday simply provided me somewhat glimpse into what’s to return.
Chase and I had been in a position to do a number of water slides collectively and individually and there was one slide known as the Half Pipe that felt like a crazy-intense drop off in a tube. Chase didn’t meet the peak requirement however he needed to do the slide subsequent to me and informed me he’d meet me on the backside. He yelled out, “I really like you, Mother!” earlier than he took off down the slide on his personal after which known as again as much as me, “You bought this, Mother!” earlier than it was my flip to do the drop-off slide. These small moments felt additional particular to me, particularly on his birthday.
My sister and her household joined our household on the water park as nicely which made the entire day additional enjoyable! Additionally they stunned Chase with some arcade tokens and he was thrilled to have the ability to play on the arcade earlier than we left which made him completely gentle up! We wrapped up Chase’s birthday with pizza (the birthday boy’s request), cake and presents and it actually was such an exquisite day celebrating our largest child! None of our children have cared a lot about birthday events this 12 months so we’ve simply embraced filling their birthdays with additional household enjoyable which feels so particular.
Typically the web and social media could make it really feel like you need to do massive, splashy issues for child birthdays however I do know in my coronary heart a waterpark day with household was the right option to ring in 8-years-old for Chase. He liked it and we liked watching him have the perfect day!
Sunday: St. Augustine Olympic Triathlon
Sunday morning we had been up darkish and early to make our method right down to Vilano Seashore to cheer for Ryan and my brother-in-law, Ross, as they participated of their first Olympic Triathlon collectively.
Ryan and Ross are planning on doing a Half Ironman in September and thought this may be a great way for Ross to get a triathlon below his belt earlier than the large race this fall. We needed to help our guys and fortunately every thing appeared to work nicely for spectators as we noticed the fellows end the swim, start and finish the bike and begin and end the run.
It was a a lot smaller race than the Half Ironmans we’ve been to just lately which made it really feel extra manageable to spectate with a bunch of youngsters within the combine and but oddly sufficient, regardless of all of this, it felt like one of many rougher races for the boys to observe as a result of it was so scorching. We joked they had been melting (however actually possibly that was simply my endurance?) and this expertise simply made me grateful Ryan often selects extra temperate races! I simply needed to share this right here as a result of we’ve had some unbelievable spectating experiences that the boys have completely liked however spectating lengthy races actually isn’t with out some fussiness. (Value noting, Ryan ever tells us we’ve got to observe him however often it’s one thing all of us like to do to help him! I suppose ya win some and ya lose some and sweaty super-hot youngsters make ya lose some.)
As for the race itself, the fellows did nice! It was the primary massive ocean swim (not in a protected channel) for each guys and so they did nice on the bike and run parts of their race, too.
I feel I might’ve handed out 100 occasions due to the warmth however they managed to deal with it nicely and completed with smiles on their faces. We had been all very impressed!!
Now I’m off to take in the final little bit of our time in Florida. I hope you all have an exquisite week!