Please, Have Your Happy

There's not much in life that's free, but letting other people have their Happy is. It really is! When I'm over here setting up 20+ Christmas trees, I'm all of the Happy. I might have to pay a price for that privilege (So much work! And trees aren't free!), but you don't! You get to sit there and watch me be Happy and it doesn't cost you a single thing!

It's pretty amazing.

And, really, I get as much Happy from seeing other people be Happy as I do from my own Happy, so it's a pretty Happy thing.

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"I think I might start putting up Halloween decorations," I said.

"UGH. Can't you just let it be September?" Alexis replied.

"Listen here, Miss Pumpkin Spice. It's time for some goblins," I retorted.

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"Miss Pumpkin Spice" is an understatement. Alexis has fully immersed herself in Basic White Girl Happy. She currently has two boxes of pumpkin spice cereal in the pantry. There are pumpkin spice bagels, pumpkin spice bread, pumpkin spice yogurt, and pumpkin spice donuts in the house. She has also flipped her order at Starbucks because IT IS PUMPKIN SPICE SEASON, BY GOLLY.

Don't bother trying to tell her otherwise. A cashier at a grocery store tried to complain about "too early" and Alexis was all "IT MAKES ME HAPPY SO WHATEVER."

Seriously. She stretched herself out all tall and proudly declared her Happy for pumpkin spice.

That was when I realized it costs nothing to let people have their Happy. I mean, I have to buy all of the pumpkin stuff, but I was going to buy cereal and snacks and such anyway. Buying the seasonal flavor, despite the calendar saying it's September, just earns me bonus points with the kid. She hands out bonus points and then I get to see her Happy.

That's such a win.

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So I'm going to focus on letting people have their Happy. Whether it's going to a convention I don't understand, driving a car I wouldn't pick, listening to music that makes my ears cry, or whatever. Have your Happy. It doesn't cost me a single thing to let you have it.

(Except you, Mila. You're going to have to stop finding your Happy in yelling "Stop!" and "Go!" in the car. It may be free, but it's going to cause me to have a very expensive wreck.)

Fixed It

Sometimes life hands you lemons and sometimes it throws lemonade in your face and yells WHATEVER.

So THAT happened on Saturday. Both the lemons and the lemonade.

As anyone who instantly identifies with "412" knows, Kennywood announced that they were closing the Log Jammer last week. This was to be its last weekend, so being the studious little season pass holders we are, we trudged our way there. AND SO DID ALL THE REST OF PITTSBURGH. AND BEYOND

A couple of things about this: 1) It's a shame that there was no way for Kennywood to know that they would be super busy. Like, if only 1/3 of the people who were there might have been there for a prescheduled company picnic? I don't know. That might have helped. AHEM. 2) CHEESE AND CRACKERS, WHY WAS EVERYTHING CLOSED? Did Kennywood seriously miss the memo that People's was having their employee day? Because all of the People's employees and families sure knew. Kennywood was sea of blue shirts.

Anyway. Lines were terrible. Several rides were closed. Food and drinks were hard to get because only a small handful of food stands were open, and those were understaffed. At one point, we waited in line for 45 minutes to get a drink refill.

It was dumb.

The fact that the Log Jammer was down for five hours was the icing on the cake. By the time it opened for real for the day, we were already annoyed. The line was wrapped all the way back to the Racer the second the thing opened, so we skipped it.

I stopped everything for our little family to trudge to Kennywood for a final chance to ride the Log Jammer and then we didn't ride it. Yes, that happened.

So, basically Saturday was a bust. Both girls were disappointed because they didn't get to do any of the things they wanted to do. The only way to fix a failure of a day is to throw all common sense out of the window and say, "That's it! We're wandering around downtown and eating ice cream! And we will like it!"

So that's what we did. We left Kennywood and ran our little butts downtown to walk around. Ice cream became dinner and we wandered around the Point. Which, Mila will happily run around barefoot all over Point State Park because she's Mila. (Big shout out to the stranger who stopped her from running right into the river!) Alexis will happily dance her way all around Point State Park because she's Alexis.

It took a few hours to shake off the annoyance of the rest of the day, but it totally worked. So, screw you Kennywood. We found free entertainment that was way better anyway.

Fixed It

Sometimes life hands you lemons and sometimes it throws lemonade in your face and yells WHATEVER.

So THAT happened on Saturday. Both the lemons and the lemonade.

As anyone who instantly identifies with "412" knows, Kennywood announced that they were closing the Log Jammer last week. This was to be its last weekend, so being the studious little season pass holders we are, we trudged our way there. AND SO DID ALL THE REST OF PITTSBURGH. AND BEYOND

A couple of things about this: 1) It's a shame that there was no way for Kennywood to know that they would be super busy. Like, if only 1/3 of the people who were there might have been there for a prescheduled company picnic? I don't know. That might have helped. AHEM. 2) CHEESE AND CRACKERS, WHY WAS EVERYTHING CLOSED? Did Kennywood seriously miss the memo that People's was having their employee day? Because all of the People's employees and families sure knew. Kennywood was sea of blue shirts.

Anyway. Lines were terrible. Several rides were closed. Food and drinks were hard to get because only a small handful of food stands were open, and those were understaffed. At one point, we waited in line for 45 minutes to get a drink refill.

It was dumb.

The fact that the Log Jammer was down for five hours was the icing on the cake. By the time it opened for real for the day, we were already annoyed. The line was wrapped all the way back to the Racer the second the thing opened, so we skipped it.

I stopped everything for our little family to trudge to Kennywood for a final chance to ride the Log Jammer and then we didn't ride it. Yes, that happened.

So, basically Saturday was a bust. Both girls were disappointed because they didn't get to do any of the things they wanted to do. The only way to fix a failure of a day is to throw all common sense out of the window and say, "That's it! We're wandering around downtown and eating ice cream! And we will like it!"

So that's what we did. We left Kennywood and ran our little butts downtown to walk around. Ice cream became dinner and we wandered around the Point. Which, Mila will happily run around barefoot all over Point State Park because she's Mila. (Big shout out to the stranger who stopped her from running right into the river!) Alexis will happily dance her way all around Point State Park because she's Alexis.

It took a few hours to shake off the annoyance of the rest of the day, but it totally worked. So, screw you Kennywood. We found free entertainment that was way better anyway.