Sunday, August 21, 2011

A fun new look

Well, Kassi has been itching to color her hair again.  While living with Jay’s parents we opted not to color her hair because of the high iron in the well water.  There was one stipulation – she had to get her room unpacked, organized, and cleaned.  I thought that would be the motivator we needed; however, it took several weeks – well over seven before that room was ever done. 

Matter of fact, the hair coloring wasn’t the final motivator. She came home the other day after I had spent several hours with Mackenzie finalizing her share of the room and I told her she had to get the room done.  After three hours of piddling around & not seeing much progress, it was a simple threat and I meant business, “You have till tonight to get your room done & anything not unpacked and put away is being donated.  Because apparently if you have gone this long without it and you don’t miss it, well then you don’t need it.”

Believe it or not she succeeded and in plenty of time to go get the hair color so she could take care of it immediately.  Well, while we were there Mackenzie came across a color she wanted to put in her hair. 

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Okay – at first I was NO.  But the longer Kassi looked for her color, the more I thought about it the more I thought ‘what’s the big deal?’ I mean hey it is her favorite color.  Well, we only left with color for Kassi.

After discussing it and weighing the pros and cons – which for us there was not a huge list for comparison, I mean Kassi started coloring her hair at 11 and well Mackenzie is 11.  Unlike the color that Kassi uses which is permanent, this funky purple at best would only last 6-8 weeks. 

I explained to Mackenzie she could do it, but if she didn’t like it there was nothing we could do and she would just have to let it grow out.  To get that vibrant lavender color the kit comes with a bleaching step, but I explained to her there would be NO bleaching.  She was cool with that so we went back and bought the color.

Here is a very excited little lady before . . .

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during the process . . .

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rinsing . . .

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the final look.  It was a nice subtle almost magenta color, kind of cute on the spunky one. (check out Kassi’s new color)

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Unfortunately, since we didn’t bleach her hair the color has lost a lot of its spunk.  It looks like some purple highlights in her hair.  We have decided once our summer is officially over – no more swimming – we’ll be a little more adventurous but not too drastic!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Zoombezi fun

It’s hard to believe our summer is almost over.  Kassi clocked over 120 volunteer hours (she’ll find out the exact number at the end of the season banquet) at the zoo.  Which meant we got to spend some time at Zoombezi. 

Since she spends at least one day a week at the zoo, we splurge and get summer passes for the water park.  With the price of gas & the distance we drive to the zoo, why make two round trips.  So, the game plan was for us to go to the water park the days she was scheduled to work.  It didn’t always work out that way.  But we did have a fun summer and we visited the bay several times and even hung out with some friends. 

Today, though, we took our favorite little guy. . .

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Odie.

We were all so excited about spending a few hours with him in a very fun place, but the catch we later found out from his daddy – he doesn’t like to get his head wet. 

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So, we set-up camp in the baby area figuring one of us big people – Aunt Angie or Uncle J – could hang with him periodically when we all weren’t in the lazy river or wave pool. 

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It was a great little area and he was willing to go down this crazy whale slide . . . well, when he reached the bottom, his head got wet.  At first he wasn’t very happy about it, but . . .

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Zack to the rescue. 

So, we headed over to the bay and Uncle J took him down a bigger slide – making sure his head stayed above the water.  It wasn’t he didn’t like his head to get wet – he didn’t like any part of his body above his waist to get wet. 

It reminded me so much of our youngest, who to this day has never had swimming lessons because when we tried to at the Y when she was little – she was NOT having it.  She wouldn’t even get into the water.  Of course, you’d never know that today because she loves to swim and play in the water. 

Odie didn’t even want to walk in the water that was at his ankles. So, Uncle J climbed into a raft with him (life jacket included) on his lap & we all took a stroll around the river to the wave pool.  The little guy was fine sitting on someone’s lap/leg in the shallow water, but he didn’t want to venture around nor splash anyone. 

When the waves came, Uncle J held him tight & up high.  He wasn’t sure about the tiniest little splash on his face.  So, we kept showing him how to wipe his eyes & face and eventually he was giggling at Zack & Mackenzie playing in the waves.

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After a while he started to have a some fun and even started walking around in the water - we even got him to splash Uncle J.

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Of course, by the time he started to warm up to the idea of being in the water, a storm ruined our fun. The ironic thing – as we walked out to the car in the down pouring rain that was pelting all of us and running down his head & face, he never complained once.  Next summer he’ll be a year older so maybe that big intimidating place won’t be so scary and we can take him and he’ll have a really good time!  ;-)