amusement park kind of weekend

We just had the best kind of weekend with Eric's family, and luckily it fell on the same weekend as Mia's 18 month mark, so she got one heckuva half birthday celebration ;) Turns out our tiny one and a half year old is a big ol' thrill seeker which made the weekend even funner!
Saturday we played long and hard at Lagoon with the whole famdamily. This is such a fun tradition that we look forward to each year! I was kind of worried how Mia would do with the rides because parents aren't allowed to be in the area, you have to stay outside the gates. I didn't want Mia's ticket to go to waste and I didn't know if she would sit for the rides... but I had no reason to worry! Mia LOVED the rides! She seriously couldn't get enough! She didn't want any help on the merry go round, in fact, I couldn't even touch the animal she was sitting on. Girlfrien' is a big girl now, and incredibly independent, ha! She was ridiculously impatient while waiting in lines, she would pull on our shoulders, arms, hands to get us to move forward. When that didn't work she took matters into her own hands and tried to climb up the little gates, squeeze between the bars, and she even attempted to slide underneath the gate (the whole 2 inches between the bar and cement) to get to the rides! The rides always ended too quickly for her liking, she would shoo us away while trying to re-buckle the safety belt so that she wouldn't have to get off :)
As much as we loved watching Mia ride the rides, we also loved watching her play with her cousins! She's still in her own little world and very independent when it comes to playing, so it was fun to see her interaction with the kids! She loves her cousins! Eric and I got to sneak off and ride the adult rides with our siblings while grandparents watched the kids... they are saints! And Mia didn't even miss us, so there's that :)
It's also tradition to stuff our faces with ice cream at Lagoon. They always have the best flavors and the biggest scoops. Well, Eric's ice cream was a little on the humongous size... he had a cute little teenager scooping his when he put on his charming smile and threw a couple winks in her direction. I'm hardly kidding here, he joked about putting her muscles to good use and hooking him up with ice cream and she did her best to impress him! It worked! Eric's 2 scoop ice cream turned into at least 6 scoops, and I can't help but laugh because I was that same little teenager being wooed into "hooking a brotha up" as Eric put it not too long ago... at least it doesn't seem that long ago ;)
Overall this day was definitely one for the books... so. much. fun! We can't wait to get together with family again in a couple weeks!