Enlightenment and Enchantment

This has been an incredibly busy week, but Thursday was particularly crazy. I have a number of family and some friends that I've been trying to figure out how to spend quality time with, but found my free time quickly running out. I start back to work this coming Monday. So I opted to double up and have a really long day to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

The kids and I got up really early to go to the mall to meet my kind-of-cousin. The short of it is, my uncle had twin girls and then divorced their mother. She would go onto give birth to another set of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. The boy, Brad, was born with cerebral palsy and currently has an 80% hearing loss. Anyhow, we've seen each other a handful of times over the years at various family functions, but it's been a LONG time since the last time. To be honest, I barely had a chance to get to know him when I was younger, but always found him to be very sweet. I was nervous that I wouldn't know what to say (since I didn't know him very well) as I am very bad at small talk.

Well, we reconnected on Facebook and decided to meet up since he was living in my neck of the woods now. We met at the mall and had a really nice time. My kids were wonderful and they got along great with Brad. My kids can be very blunt with their questions sometimes (just their childlike curiosity), but they were very respectful of him and really impressed me. He entertained them with the controls on his power wheelchair as he spinned around and kept me panting to keep up, which he thought was quite funny. :)

He recently had surgery to get a cochlear implant, so he was struggling with a little pain. He told me he does have to read lips and relies on sign language from time to time. He has overcome so much in his life and has such a positive energy about him. I am hearing impaired myself to a certain extent, but cannot afford a hearing aid at this time (insurance doesn't cover it), so it was great to learn how he's handled his. He gave me some great advice on some options, so I was grateful for that. He is one of those true angels on earth and I am so glad we had this get-together.

As for the rest of the day's plans, I had to say goodbye to Brad so the kids and I could meet up with their Grandpa, my natural father. We drove to Salem, which was about 45 minutes away, to go to the Enchanted Forest. It's sort of an amusement park as it has some rides, but it specializes in bringing fairy tales to life in different ways. I hadn't been to this park in many many years, so I was excited for the afternoon of fun ahead of us.

We were all famished, so we ate some lunch first. Then we hit the trail and the kids began their adventure into fantasy land. N was a little iffy about everything at first. He thought maybe he was too old for all the kiddie stuff, he's almost nine years old after all ;0). However, it didn't take him long to open up to the fun of it all and ended up having a blast. We splurged on some extra tickets so we could tour the haunted house and go the log ride.

There was a lot of walking involved up and down hills, so we rested up a bit. While the kids played on a wraparound slide, I chatted with my dad. He mentioned an interesting question K had asked him at one point during the day. K is known to say and ask some very offbeat things, so I always expect something creative from her. Anyhow, he says she asks him why he gave me away to my other dad (or something to that affect). He said he told her simply that he was my first daddy and was then raised by my second daddy (forget the exact wording). I thought that was the perfect answer. She lit up at the mention of her name, so I told her I was fortunate enough to have two daddies. She tells me that when she grows up, she's gonna have two daddies too...I had to smile at her kid logic.

By late afternoon, we got some waffle cones and took in the free water show. It was getting late, so we called it a day. I was so glad we had this wonderful day with Grandpa as he doesn't get to see them too often. About halfway home, I stopped at Walmart to get a few things and then went home. Our dog had been cooped up all day, so we took her for a short walk and then to the park to run around for a bit. By the time I put my feet up to rest, I was very tired. It was a long day, but a very lovely day.