Life as a Yowler

Brandon, like the tornado he can be sometimes, calls me the day before Joah’s birthday on August 1st. He says “I dont have much time. My training is about to start. There is a Medieval Times show tonight an hour from the camp. Look into getting tickets. Good bye. Click.” Hmmmm.  Well there was that.

I fromed a plan. Joah loved the Dolly Parton Stampede. That was his highlight of all of our traveling experiences so far. I knew he would love to see the Medieval Times show as well. I called and they had availability. I texted Brandon the show time and told the kids they had better all take a fabulous nap because we had a huge surprise for later. It worked on half the kids. I’ll take it. Two naps are better than none.

Brandon got back from his training and we loaded up and left. It was so much fun hearing all the guesses on the way there. We heard everything from “grandma Jeannie is coming to town” to “it’s laser tag. I just know it’s laser tag” to “we are flying to Mexico.” We pulled up to the castle and Caed yells, “oh we gonna see a beautiful beautiful princess.”

We told the kids once we parked the car in the parking lot they were about to see a dinner show. Brandon and I had seen the same show in Myrtle Beach 5 years before over my birthday. We knew the kids were going to love it.

We first got our picture taken with the queen. Caed still thought she was a beautiful beautiful princess.

We were team yellow and we all got yellow crowns.

Lord Joah

The show was amazing. The food was really good too. Joah didn’t sit down in his seat for almost the entire show. He was very into it. We kept reminding him to eat. He kept saying “I’m just too excited to eat.” Someone from our team won, which really made joah’s night. He is very competitive.

The queen sent Joah a birthday card. He even got verbal recognition from one of the queen’s assistants. They wished Lord Joah Yowler a very happy 6th birthday in front of everyone.

All the kids, including Isla, were engaged the whole time. I love watching their faces light up with excitement.

Snuggling with her “dah.” Outside of me, her “dah” is her very favorite person.

What a show! It was very worth the last minute craziness. That’s how we role….spontaneous, last minute, and crazy.

Speaking of last minute Brandon decided to check at the Jellystone Campground and see if they do anything for birthdays. Joah’s birthday was August 2nd and we were planning to stay at camp all day. The camp offers a happy birthday from Yogi himself. He drives to your campsite and delivers a signed card, gifts, and a happy birthday. They had a cancelation for the afternoon on J’s birthday. Perfect. We will take it.

Turns out Yogi forgot his happy birthday duty. Silly bear. He took an extra long nap that afternoon. We waited on our campsite the entire 4-5 time slot we were given. The kids were eagerly waiting their surprise. When 5 came, I told Joah to close his eyes. I gave him a huge birthday smooch. He opened his eyes and says “are you serious? That’s the surprise? Mom, I can literally get one of those any time I want to.” Brandon went up to the office. They were mortified. They were like “oh my word we will throw someone in a costume as soon as possible.” Yogi came and it was worth the wait.

Joah got some extra gifts for having to wait.

The funnest gift they gave were the bags of mining sand.

We found all kinds of treasures…..mostly sea shells and a few shark teeth.

We went to the arcade and spent Joah’s tokens he was given.

We had a little pizza party for J.

We had so much fun camping this week. With us staying parked at one campground for so long, we had the actual camping experience as you can see…..

There were definitely some dirty kids and lots of baths.

We stopped in Ohio on the way home. Grandma Yowler is incredible. She makes the kids birthday cakes each year. Joah wanted a hunting cake this year. I was really thanking grandma and talking about how incredible it is she makes these amazing cakes. Joah pipes up and goes, “yeah mom if it were up to you, you would just buy a cake.” Then Brielle goes “or maybe she would order one off amazon prime.” I could really feel the love. In all seriousness, my kids know me well. They are blessed to have such a talented Grandma.