Schlitterbahn

I apologize for being bad again about updating the blog.  I've been busy with one thing or another and battling illnesses off and on with myself and kids.  I am soooo looking forward to summer vacation with no schedules, early alarm clocks, or homework enbattled children.  Hopefully, I can get caught up on here again as well.  Here's our latest activity...

Chase's grandma gave us a generous gift to do something fun with the kids.  We decided to get the family season passes to Schlitterbahn, a local water park.  Our first trip was a few weeks ago and we had a lot of fun!  Thank you Grandma Fox for such a fun and thoughtful gift for our family! 

Joelle was not digging the water.  She has had some issues with water ever since her ear infections and needing to get tubes put in.  I thought she'd do alright though since she likes her baths again.  I think it was the initial shock of cold water that turned her off and she refused to let me help her get used to it so she could have fun.  I walked around in the water with her, sat with her on the side and waded our feet, but nothing helped.  She wanted to play and would ask to go down the slides, but every time we got up to do it and got over to the slides, she'd start whining and crying again.  I stood by the side of one slide and slid her half way down one slide, but she was still not happy.  If she'd stayed in the water long enough she probably would have started to have fun and the temperature wouldn't have bothered her as much. 

Emery was a little fish the entire time.  She spent a good deal of time crawling through the water pretending to be a fish, turtle, or dolphin.  She also quickly made friends with the other little kids and played on the slides and pirate ship.  Emery refused to get on a tube and go on the lazy river with us though.  I think she still was having some fear issues from our scare on the river last month, which was understandable.  That story I'll save for another blog, plus I have no pictures since I kept forgetting my camera, so my sister-in-law Ceri has all those pics and when I get them I'll post about it.

The first part of the day I watched the little girls while Chase took the older kids on the rides and lazy river.  Then Chase came and switched with me so I could do some things with the older kids as well.  Joelle finally started to smile when it was snack time, that was the high light of her trip.  Afterwards, we drove around to try to find the office to print our season passes and pictures.  There was this neighborhood filled with deer grazing in the front yards of the houses.  It was crazy, it was in the middle of the day like around 2:00 and here was this herd of deer just chilling in a big neighborhhood next to a busy water park.  After getting our season passes, it was a trip to Sonic for happy hour.  We all had a wonderful time and are excited to go again all summer long!

 Deer in the neighborhood next to the park in the middle of the day.

 Tube fun down the Lazy River.

 Coming back from their first slide rides.

 Little Girls sharing snacks.

 Crazy face.

 Joelle posing sweetly for the camera.

 This is what Joelle did for most of the trip, until she got her snack.  Bailey pulled a muscle in her leg so she joined us and tried to help Joelle have fun on the pirate ship.  It worked for all of 30 seconds.

 Emery chilling on the whale.

 My little dolphin or turtle, whatever she was at the time I took this.

 Another crazy smile.

 That's a little better :) .

 Coming through the water tunnel.

 I'm not sure I want to be here mom.

 Getting sprayed on the head.

 Getting sprayed.

 Steering the pirate ship.

 Sliding down the shoe.

 Emery having a "whale" of a time...ha ha, cheesy I know.

 Cam all psyhed to go down the slides.

 Bailey excited but nervous, she was finally talked into trying the slide and had fun.

Addie's ready for some fun...and my big, fat, white arm.