Happy Monday! We bounced, played and adventured our way through the weekend. Finn’s FIFTH birthday is on Thursday so I told him that we were going to have a “Finn + Mommy celebration weekend.” It was full of fun and quality time.

THURSDAY

We had an early start to the weekend with a Thursday afternoon trip to Urban Air. It’s Finn’s favorite trampoline park and when I told him about our weekend plans, it was his number one request for activities to do.

I chose to go when they opened at 4p on Thursday because it’s SO much more manageable than visiting on the weekends. Weekday afternoons are typically much less crowded. I think there were probably 20-30 kids there total. One thing I like about Urban Air is that they keep everything SO clean. It was clean when we got there and the staff was cleaning the whole time we were there.

Finn played for a little over two hours and was a sweaty mess when we rolled out of there! Probably didn’t need the sweatpants but that’s what he chose to wear instead of shorts and I wasn’t going to try and change his mind. 🙂

FRIDAY 

I worked at the gym training clients for half the day on Friday. When I got home our big afternoon activity was Finn’s first swim team practice. He’s doing swim team at our pool for the first time! He’s on the Shrimps team and it’s too cute. Loved watching the practice and excited for many more practices and pool days to come. The pool opens for the season this coming weekend!

After practice I asked Finn if he wanted to go for a walk. His reply was, “no Mommy, you run.” So run I did – and it felt amazing. I don’t run this late in the day very often nowadays but it did me right no Friday. Finn genuinely loves riding in the running stroller and the Cybex Avi has made it possible for me to keep running even with a bigger kid.

SATURDAY 

After a bit of a lazy start to Saturday morning, we really packed in the fun on Saturday afternoon. We started with a trip to Discovery Place Science to check out the new Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes exhibit.

MARVEL: Universe of Super Heroes celebrates Marvel’s 80-year history: from the iconic characters to the creators who’ve told the stories. 

The exhibition features hundreds of artifacts including original comic book pages, interactive displays, life-size statues of your favorite Super Heroes, and costumes and props from Marvel’s films, many of which have never been on public display outside this exhibition. 

Finn is definitely on the up-and-up with his knowledge of Marvel characters. He LOVED seeing the life-sized statues of his favorites but breezed by most of the artifacts without a second glance. We were through the exhibit in 20 minutes and it’s definitely something that you could spend upwards of an hour or more experiencing.

This exhibit is really well done and I would recommend it for kids and adults alike who are into Marvel!

A few things worth noting if you’re a regular to Discovery Place…

• Everything on the first and third floors of the museum is still the same but the entire second floor is mostly dedicated to Marvel. They’ve removed most of the permanent exhibits on the second floor.
• The Marvel exhibit requires special tickets (even for members but the rate is discounted to $20).
• The exhibit runs through early September.

We spent about two hours at Discovery Place and then our next stop was the gym. I got in a barbell-focused lift and Finn did a hybrid of playing games on his tablet and working out with me. Check out that plank form!

We popped over to Park Road Park for some playground time.

And ended our big outing with a dinner date at Midwood Smokehouse. Y’all know Finn loves a restaurant with hush puppies!

We did make one final stop of the day into Harris Teeter to stock up on ice cream. 🙂 I am SO hooked on their Private Selection pints. Finn loves the little single-serve Haagen-Dazs for a treat. He likes that it comes with its own little spoon built into the lid.

SUNDAY

We had an EPIC Sunday morning at The Big Bounce America. I honestly can’t think of a better birthday outing/activity for Finn.

The Big Bounce America is a touring inflatable event. It stopped in Charlotte for two weekends. You guys, there is a 16,000 square-foot bounce house as part of the event. It’s the Guinness Book record holder and kind of bananas. I knew I had to take Finn.

I tend to be somewhat leery about events like this and went in with low expectations. They were very much exceeded and I recommend checking out The Big Bounce if it comes to your area.

Here are some highlights that are good to know!

• I really like that you can book your tickets by age. First, there are family sessions and adults only sessions. The family sessions are broken down into toddler (3 and under), junior (7 and under) and bigger kids (15 and under). It gave me a lot of peace of mind to know that Finn wouldn’t be bouncing with bigger kids and teens. Adults are permitted to bounce with kids but must purchase their own ticket.
• You are assigned a three-hour window to visit. Ours was 9a-noon. Within that, you are assigned a 45-minute time slot for The World’s Biggest Bounce House. You line up before your assigned time and they let everyone in all at once. The staff guides you through the experience and it’s controlled chaos in the best way.
• Your ticket gets you full access to all of the bounce activities. In addition to the biggest bounce house there’s also an inflatable slide, a sports zone, a giant obstacle course and more. The Giant obstacle course is over 900-feet in length and so crazy. Finn did it four times in a row and came out drenched in sweat saying his body “felt weird.” Haha.
• We had to pay $10 to park but I’m guessing that’s event-specific. There are vendors selling carnival/fair-type food. We brought in our own water and I saw people with packed snacks from home too.
• Socks are required to bounce. I brought two extra pairs in my purse just in case.

Overall, I felt like it was a great experience. The Big Bounce America was really well-organized and legitimately FUN! I will take Finn again if they come back to Charlotte.

We got home just before 1p and had lunch and downtime. Finn was so wiped out after his big morning. We eventually made our way to The Fresh Market to grab a few things for dinner. I decided that I wanted to make my shepherd’s pie with mashed cauliflower topping and needed a few things for the recipe. I also needed bread flour for sourdough and a slice of carrot cake made it into my cart. Every mom needs a sweet treat on Mother’s Day.

I got the sourdough and shepherd’s pie prepped when we got home. Virginia came over during this and we hung out and chatted for a while.

My Mother’s Day request was an evening walk. Finn said he was too tried from bouncing and wanted to ride but ended up walking over half the way with me.

Finn was super sweet and snuggly at bedtime and said all the heart melting things about how much he loved me and that I was the best mommy. He picked out Little Blue Truck Valentine’s because it “was Mother’s Day and this book is about love.” After he was down I enjoyed my cake and an episode of Firefly Lane.

The end. It was a really special weekend being a mom to my almost five year old. <3

QUESTIONS

Did you do anything to celebrate Mother’s Day? 

Has anyone else been to The Big Bounce? What did you think? 

Did you prep any food for the week over the weekend?