Go Karts and Sea creatures and water balloons...oh my!

Keeping the kids engaged and entertained this summer is something that is proving to be a bit challenging. Let's be honest. I would love to be able to just give the kids their video games and veg out in the air conditioning while watching a movie on On Demand....but that does no one any good. 

Caleb always needs extra engaging activities due to his Autism and Jansen needs extra activities due to his laziness (he actually is quite lazy and requires a lot of motivation, and even then he is always BORED). 

Today my husband was switching to graveyards from days which means that he could sleep later than 4:15am and doesn't have to go to work until 5pm this evening. That gave us some time to go have some family fun time. 

There is a test track about 20 minutes north of our town that has go karts. 

What kid doesn't like go karts? Jansen. That is who. Jansen can find something to complain about in any activity...so we are actively trying to nip that in the bud and teach him to try things before he forms an opinion. Caleb was all for it. 

They were fitted for helmets...looking like ninjas first and bobbleheads second :)

Then they got the safety run down in the karts...

And then they were off! Each kid got 15 minutes around the track, but Jansen was finished after 6 laps.

I praised him for making the effort, he loved it, and challenged himself to go 10 laps next time. 

Caleb said he felt like Mario in Mario Kart. 




Then we headed back home to visit our Sea Center quickly. It only takes about 10 minutes to go through it, but we took the time to challenge the kids on a scavenger hunt. Each tank has a list of creatures next to it with information and a photo of the creature. We challenged the boys to find each creature. They had fun!

We ended up at Sonic for some chicken strip kid's meals and then home to rest a bit. The boys played some video games to unwind while I prepped for the next outdoor activity. 

I had Caleb help me fill water balloons...which was an activity in itself. Each child got a bucket full of balloons and we headed outside for...

Water Balloon Bull's Eye!

Chalk and water balloons. Easy peasy. Each child was responsible for keeping their own score (yay for math skills) and they both had a really good time.

 Although the game quickly turned into a straight up water balloon fight. I should have incorporated this game into a water day with other water activities, but oh well. This was fine by me. It got Jansen moving, which is on his list of goals...some kind of exercise every day. Caleb and I had him running all over the front yard trying to get away from the water balloons. He had fun!

As a prize for both of them, I had left over gift bags from Jansen's party that had tattoos, mini footballs, beads, bubbles, noisemakers, and foam finger suckers in them. I knew I should save them! They were probably more excited about the gift bags than the water balloons!!

Now it is only 3:30 and we are settling in for a cartoon hour. Josh will be headed to work in a bit, and we are going to have a camp out night in the living room tonight. Low calorie popcorn, sugar free Hawaiian Punch, and a movie while hanging out in our tent. I could camp like this every day!!!