Rain, Roller Coasters & Ribeyes

I love having brothers.  I can honestly say that I never remember a time wishing I had a sister.  Thankfully, I had a best friend named Lisa that lived right next door who I spent countless hours with while growing up but as far as true siblings go, Scott & Kyle were it & happened to be just about the best brothers a girl could ask for! 

Living far away from family is a bummer in many ways but one thing I absolutely love about it is when we do see each other, it is a really concentrated time.  Kyle came into town on Eloise's birthday and stayed for 6 fun filled days.  We were his transition from college life to the working world ie sleeping in to early rising training. Every morning, Charlee would take "tea" in from her kitchen to Uncle Kyle & come out and tell us "He no feel good, he need to seep more!" Haha! He was quick to get up & join the early morning excitement with 2 little ones in the house.  

The first day he was here, we went to the bounce house place where he got to enjoy bouncing with his niece Charlotte who pretty much adores him.  On Friday, my mom kept Eloise at home with her while Rob, Kyle, Me & Char headed to Sea World. On the way there, it said maybe 40 percent chance of rain until the early afternoon.  My my, how quickly that changed! We went into Turtle Trek & came out to a torrential down pour that didn't let up for about 4 hours. The adults brought our rain jackets that tried so hard to keep us dry but mine eventually gave in to the relentless rain drops.  We stopped in the first store & picked up a poncho for Charlotte.  She refused to wear it so we stuck her in the stroller & draped it over the top and then we burst out laughing when we saw that it was perfect for peeking out. 

It worked well for her & kept her mostly dry as we wandered around in the tropical storm like weather.  After about 10 minutes in the rain, we were all pretty drenched but instead of heading home to dry out, we decided we might as well stay! Here are Char & Uncle Kyle looking at the sea turtles.

We ate some lunch & then went to the Shamu show which is Charlotte's ultimate favorite! We sat in the splash zone since it looked like we had already spent the majority of our day under water.  It was great & I think that from now on we will sit in the back section of the splash zone just because the view is amazing!


After the show we walked out to a very light sprinkling of rain that quickly stopped.  We rushed over to the Shamu Roller Coaster & Charlotte chose none other than her Uncle Kyle to ride with.  I love this picture of them! 

We got to ride a few other things too....

When we went to get on this ride I just assumed all 4 of us could fit in one.
Rob & Kyle looked at my like I was crazy...I guess I was haha!

Other than our day at Sea World, we spent a lot of our time just hanging out at home. Charlotte kicked Kyle's tail at Memory multiple times in a row.

Eloise really liked her new puzzle & outfit from Uncle Kyle.

Many of the evenings, Rob & Kyle enjoyed some man time on the back porch included a cigar or two (or more). They really enjoy spending time together. I was excited to have an evening out with these two men to celebrate Kyle's college graduation. Edie watched the girls while the three of us went back to Sea World. This time there was no rain and we were on a mission.  It was to ride the roller coasters as many times as possible before our dinner reservation at Fogo de Chao.  We figured it was smarter to ride first & consume a feast second ; )

I have a deep enjoyment of roller coasters, I always have & would have said before this evening that I always will. Kyle rode his very first roller coaster (The Viper at Astroworld) with me when we were about 14 & 7, he's been hooked ever since.  We jumped in line for the front row of Manta first & rode it 4 times,  switching seats each time across the 4 person row.  This ride is great & I felt great at this point. After that, we got in line for Kracken which I really like too & thought I liked it more than Manta.  We rode in the first row & loved it. I mentioned that I felt a little dizzy while going upside down but decided I should ride it again.  We were arguing over how many times you go upside down on it so Rob said he would yell "upside down" each time we were upside down & I could count. We rode in a different row the next time & as we entered the first loop I started feeling funny again. All said & done, I blacked out every single time Robby yelled "upside down!" In fact, I probably would have blacked out again had he yelled upside down after I got off the ride ; ) I felt crummy until I sat down to eat. It was really fun though...until that last ride. I am guessing it's not great for your brain to be jiggled that much for that long! Just for the record, it was 7 times that we were upside down.

I forced these two handsome guys to pose for this picture.  They complied without much force. We should have done a weigh in before & after the feast.  That place is SO good! It was a relaxing dinner in celebration of Kyle finishing up his 4 years at Texas Tech & landing a mechanical engineering job he is excited about.

It was a WONDERFUL week with Uncle Kyle in town & we are excited he is a working man now getting a paycheck to put towards another visit to the Sunshine State. It can't come soon enough. Maybe he can convince Uncle Scott to come too!

In the past two days Charlotte has started saying "Are we there yet?" the second we leave the driveway. Why oh why did this have to start before our 50 hours + of driving we will do at the end of July? I asked her where she learned to say that & she smirked & said "Uncle Kyle." Ha! Thanks Kyle! I left him a message saying that if she was telling the truth we were going to take back that expensive dinner we bought for him.  Uncles are good for teaching nieces things like that ; ) Let the record show that Kyle denied the charges brought against him. True or not, it makes me laugh!