Our First Trip Ever to Craig's Cruisers

This week a dear friend of ours treated all the boys and I to a trip to Craig's Cruisers. We have never taken the boys there but they know fully well what it is because we have to drive by it regularly on the high way. They have a prominent real estate location, right where every child and man who wishes he was still a child can see.

The trip was a total surprise to them. If you would like to watch their reaction, you can HERE. Think they were excited?

The biggest thing they could not wait to do is ride the Go Carts. Sadly, I have no video of this event, only this photo. But I am confident the memory will last a good long time in their heads. At this photo, S1, S2, S3 and I were waiting for our turn to drive. S1 was confident, being the professional garden tractor driver he is. S2 was nervous, he and S1 had ridden a bit before and he had crashed, getting a mark on his wrist band that stated if he crashed again, he would be banned from driving that day. S3 was ecstatic, he was riding in the BIG cars, he didn't even mind that Moma had to drive him.

So we piled into the cars. S2 was relieved to get the junior sized car, S3 and I got the double passenger and S1 was ready in his speeder.

But his Moma was gonna make a race of it. As I sat there rumbling my innards about in the little go cart, I knew my chances were not great. But if I could just head out before the crowd....and we did. Being a double seater it wasn't as fast as a regular one but S3 and I gave it our best shot. I kept the gas to the floor (as soon as I figured it out) and we gunned it. S3 kept sticking his head out to look back and give me play by plays.....and when S1 gained on us, we swerved, we shrieked, we jumped up and down to urge the go cart faster, and he passed us, that S1, laughing giddily as he did.

It was a great time. No crashes, no hits, just laughs.

And S4 didn't mind. Because he was having too much fun doing this.........
In fact, S3 and S4 spent a large majority of the day here. S4 grabbed the John Deere cart as often as possible, but here he did not. And this is the only photo I have. But if you would like to see a short run around the track, you can see it HERE. The poor young girl who was working here, I am quite sure she was weary of my boys. S3 had a plan, to drive fast and if you were in his way, he would push you out. He took the parking spot for the carts as a short cut, ramming the tires as he tried to speed by. And when it came time to stop, he assumed that meant everyone but him. And since he had just been racing and not braking, instead of stopping gradually, he slammed into the protective wall and waited for the girl to come rescue him. She never complained, she never sighed in disgust, she was kind to them all day long.

And it was hot. And she had no shade. She could have been grumpy.

After the cart rides and the water ride, we headed in to eat. It's a kids paradise. More so for my boys...who could eat AS MUCH AS THEY WANTED.
Even ice cream. That you could get all on your own.
They will have happy dreams of this for years to come.........

After lunch we thought we should do something not so motion related so we thought a peaceful time of put put golf would be perfect.

Please believe me....I am not even slightly exaggerating, my life flashed before my eyes.

Put put golf is DANGEROUS.

It started innocently enough. And there were happy moments, like when S1 finally was able to inspect this house he had been wondering about all these years as we drove by it. (the funny thing is that there was a little itty bitty rocking chair on this porch that was the perfect size for S4. He would have been content to stay there, I think.

It might have been safer.

I'll just give you the basics....

S3 nearly took my entire left side of my face off. He went to swing....and he swung high and fast and hard. Sue and I are still dumbfounded how it missed me.

S4 was running to chase his golf ball, because, why would you ever let it roll away from you?, when S3 hit another hard liner....right for S4's back side. He does have a faint bruise we seen after bath time. At the moment, we told him to shake it off, trying to avoid a melt down. But then Sue and I looked at each other and winced. It had looked painful.
A golf ball was lost to a fence, a bush, a fence again, more bushes, tall grass, another hole, rocks...and all were rescued. A ball hit the waterfall and we almost lost S3 who chased after it. All of us were screaming for him and he had one thought, "my blue ball is floating away in the blue water". But he stopped short, miraculously.

I'm not sure how we survived. It was the longest game of put put golf in the history of put put golf. I have never golfed. I haven't put put golfed but maybe three times in my life. There should be warning signs about it....I have no idea how on earth it could ever be called relaxing.

But we did survive.

And all in all, other than the phone that dropped in the toilet that we are praying hard over to come back to us and not be permanently damaged....we had a super duper great time. In fact, the boys would dare say it was one of their best day ever...but then S1 would pause, blush and mutter "well, except that one incident....."

And I'd smile at him. Because I seen when he accidentally walked into the girls bathroom, embarrassingly realized his mistake and back tracked quickly, hurried so fast to get into the right bathroom that he literally walked right into the wall.

Other than that, it was a perfect day. A dream come true for my boys. And my dear friend, I could not thank you enough.

But it's so great a thing you did for us that I must say it again....thank you.

S4 may have said it best..."I just have to give you a hug Moma, because I love you and because when I go to sleep tonight I will see go-carts in my eyes."
And I think we should start visiting all those little coffee shops for research really soon....minus about five kids.