Splish Splash

Through some sort of summer reading program (which somehow includes "being read to"), the girls had free water park passes that expired this season, and Labor Day weekend was technically the end of season.  We decided to try a water park on the other side of the county that we'd never been to before, and it was pretty much awesome.

They had this giant water slide that was a blast.  The girls insisted on going down on our laps, but I'll take it.

They also had a splash pad area that kept the ladies entertained.

We like to test the water with our heinies...

before we get brave enough to go through.

Emma was cracking me up.  I think she thought she was bending down far enough to go under all the water spouts, but in reality, she was sticking her head right where all of the water spouts were hitting her.

They also loved the zero entry pool.  It was nice to have a huge area of 1.5 ft or so of water that they could play and splash and swim around in.  Julie was dancing, even in the pool.

When we went back to the splash pad, the water gun was finally free, and they took control.

Becca and daddy

Becca got herself in the face pretty good.

We stayed there much longer than we normally would have stayed, but we were all having so much fun.  The only downside was that Greg and I ended up with some sunburn.  The girls were fine - somehow - but I think we learned not to skimp on our own sunscreen.

Pirates

We went to the water park on Saturday.  This one's a little farther away, but it has the advantage in the kid's area of water not constantly pounding down on you.  The kid's area is probably a bit more appropriate for them than the one that's 10 minutes from our house.  

This wasn't an indoor water park, and we almost didn't go because it was so overcast with a few showers around, and a mostly cloudy forecast.  We hit a few sprinkles going up the highway...  The girls were already in bathing suits and knew where we were going.  Greg and I looked at each other, but we pretty much knew we couldn't back out.  Luckily, it was dry when we got there.

We'd actually been to this water park last year, but I can't find a blog post about it.  It has a "pirate" theme, which was perfect for them.

Water slides that they'll actually go on (R).

Emma standing on the pirate ship, pointing at the treasure chest painted on top of the slide Becca was going down in the previous picture.  She kept saying, "Buried treasure!"

I like this one where the parrot is over Julie's shoulder.

You can see it wasn't terribly crowded.  Besides the overcast weather, it was still tax free weekend.  There were other people there, but not a lot.

Greg went down one of the big water slides, and the girls thought it was so cool.  We sat in the pool and watched him wait in line on the stairs, then watched him go down and splash in the pool.  Greg said he could hear them screaming from across the park.

The other big news of the outing was that Emma will swim now (wearing the Puddle Jumper, of course).  But she'll let go of us, and "swim" back and forth from the stairs or Greg or I.  She's still pretty vertical, but it's progress.  Julie and Becca still aren't really fond of us letting go when they can't touch.

All sorts of awesome

The weekend before last, we had a moms of multiples pool party at a community center that's only been open for a year or so.  We'd never been there before, so we weren't sure what to expect.

But the pool?  Was all sorts of awesome.

It was inside, which was nice since it was overcast, but also means that it's open all year long.  Because we will most certainly go back.

Finally, a water slide that they liked.

This was pretty cool... and really pretty ... those plastic "seats" would fill up with water and tip over.  We never made it back there, but it looked neat.  There was also a water slide in the far end of the pool that went outside of the building.

I had a little bit of an obsession with these rainbow sprinklers.

This is about their favorite thing to do in the water - trowl around on their bellies.

Conspiring against the little jets coming up from the floor.

The rainbow twist.  You have no idea how long I had to wait for people to get out of my picture.

Becca did take a little while to warm up to the water slide.  She wanted one of us down at the bottom to catch her, even though it was only about a foot deep.

They had these water guns up on the play structure.  Becca's trying to climb the wall to reach it and see who she can spray.

4th of July

We didn't really have anything planned for the 4th of July.  We woke up and had one of those, "I don't know, what do you want to do?" mornings.  We decided to use some Living Social vouchers I'd bought for a water park that's in the next town over.

 They still don't like even the little kid water slides.  They mostly like to lay on their bellies in the shallow pool and pretend to swim (read: scrape their bathing suits along the bottom of the pool until they pill...).  They like to sit on the edge of the pool (like the pic of Em, just above, at "0 Ft 0 In") and jump in, and climb back out again.  Julie has recently started to like laying on her back and floating.  She's also been swimming in the tub lately - Emma and Becca are usually in a hurry to get out of the tub when I do baths, so I always save Julie for last.  She loves having the whole tub to herself, and I let her "swim" while I start cleaning up.

The girls had been begging to go see fireworks all week.  We used it as a bargaining chip for most of the week.  On the 4th, we told them that they all had to take a nap, or we wouldn't go see fireworks.  I guess the water park wore them out sufficiently, because they all did take a nap.  At that point, Greg and I figured we'd have to come up with a plan for fireworks after all.  Naps are so hard to come by these days that we were counting on staying home.

We had about 3 options, and considering traffic, cost, and crowds, we decided to go a few towns over. They were having a carnival in addition to fireworks, so after dinner, we headed over.  There were only a couple of rides that they were big enough for.  Here, they're contemplating the ferris wheel.

They went on this thing first.  It was definitely small town carnival, complete with a spare bolt laying on the platform.

They all wanted to go on the little ferris wheel, too.  While we were waiting in line, I overheard a boy tell his mother that it looked like a dog cage.  Yeah, pretty much.

They really wanted to go on the bigger ferris wheel with us, but the line was ridiculous, and it was going to cost us $20 to all go.  Instead, we spent that $20 on some Italian ices.

Love this one.

At that point, we were just stalling until the fireworks.  There was a concert going on, so we checked that out for a bit.  Finally, we decided to get some drinks and kettle corn, and go get the chairs from the car to settle in for some fireworks.

We settled in.  Found a spot.  Cracked open the kettle corn.

One firework went up.  It was pretty.

And then, it went BOOM.

And they freaked.

"Iwannagetinthecar.  I'mscared.  Daddy!  Idon'twannaseefireworks!  Iwannagohome!"

They were yelling and crying, so much that the people in front of us got up and moved.

We packed up.  Watched fireworks from 3 or 4 different displays from the car on the way home.

I can't say I was terribly disappointed.  I'm not crazy about fireworks myself.  But after how much they wanted to go, I felt bad for them.

Maybe next year.

Beating the Heat

Greg was cat-sitting for some friends of ours who are out of town for a little while.  They bought an inflatable water slide earlier this season, and let us borrow it while they were out of town.  We surprised the girls with it on Saturday morning.

We still were back in the house before 10am, because it was so darn hot, but it helped beat the heat for a little while.

On Sunday, we let Greg sleep in.  Becca went upstairs by herself to get some clothes, and apparently (even though I told her not to) woke up Greg saying, "Daddy, can we go on the waterslide?"

We also went to the mall for a while, because I'd bought some vouchers for a train they've added and they expire soon (which reminds me we still have some to use in the next week...).

The ladies rode with daddy.

They were in car #3, ha.

We stayed for a little longer, and went to the play area.  Julie became obsessed with this thing.  I think she even pushed Emma away when she got too close.

Our schedule got totally off that Saturday.  The girls fell asleep at dinner time, and we tried to just put them straight to bed.  Did.  not.  work.  Greg was trying to put them to bed, and I could hear how bad it was going.  So, awesome mom that I am, I went up and asked if they wanted to go get ice cream in their pajamas.  They think I'm so cool now.