More Summer FUN

This summer has been a lot of fun for our little family. As I am sure you can tell from the previous posts about museum trips, daycations, park visits, boat rides, water gun fights, etc. Matthew really enjoys being outside. And even though I don't care for the heat and humidity that we have endured this summer, it is worth putting up with it for a little while to watch him play and explore. The pool has been a welcome activity. It is worth the circle of dead grass under the weight of the pool to have some relief from the hot sun. The pool we got this year is big enough for all three os us to sit in. Now if we are all in it, then there is really nowhere for Matthew to play, but it does allow us to briefly cool off.

The slide offered a lot of additional fun for Matthew. He was content for awhile just sliding normally down it.

Then he started going head first down it.

And backwards.

Then came the jumping off the top of the slide. I cringed the first few times, but Brian was right there making sure he didn't get hurt.

He had so much fun this summer splashing around, swimming and putting his face in the water. I think we will store this pool for next summer. The little inflatable one that we got last year probably won't make it again. But his hard plastic one (much like the ones I played in as a kid) should weather the elements in the barn until next summer.

Daycations

This summer we didn't really have the time or money to take a real vaction. So we took a couple of day trips. Wet n Wild Emerald Pointe's theme is all about Daycations. So we took their advice and had 2 daycation trips to Greensboro to visit the water park. Matthew loves the "waa waa park". Our first trip was with Gma and Pop-Pop on July 28.

Matthew was intially a little timid. Could have been the new environment, the overwhelming amounts of people, or the fact that his grand entrance into the water was down a fast kiddie slide with daddy.

Either way it took him a little while to warm up to playing in the water. But after a little while he was running around in the Happy Harbor kiddie area, crawling through submarine tunnels and sliding down slides.

It was fun for us, not in the way we used to have fun when we went to a theme park. This was fun because we truly enjoyed watching all the fun Matthew was having. It isn't very exciting for a grownup to hang out in knee deep water dodging little people all morning. But watching Matthew as he tried to "swim" (crawl around in the water on his hands with his legs floating behind him), as he independently climbed up the slide ladder among all the big kids and said "I be awright Ma-Ma",

and as he discovered the water jets were priceless moments that I wouldn't trade for more adult fun on big slides in the big pool.

After a while we did convince Matthew to leave the kiddie area and go to the wave pool. Once the sun really started beaming down the kiddie water was too shallow to offer any relief from the heat. Matthew really enjoyed the waves, but held on for dear life when the water was too deep for him to touch bottom. We were a little too deep when the waves came (or not deep enough depending on your prespective) so they crashed right on top of us. Watching the wave when it first forms, you think in your mind "I've got this" but that instant right before it breaks on top of you you think "Oh crap!" Whoever happened to be holding Matthew at those moments had only one thought - keep Matthew up high, save the baby. Gma had the best example of this. She was holding Matthew just playing along. A loud cheer errupted signalling the approach of the next wave. Gma braced herself and the wave crashed. She lost her hat, her sunglasses and one of her earrings, but she held Matthew up over the top of the wave. Matthew thought it was hilarious that the wave knocked Gma's hat off.

The wave pool got boring after a little while for Matthew. Waves only come every 5 minutes, so in between was just floating around. The grown ups enjoyed it though.

We did do a float down the lazy river. I don't know if it was just me and because I am grown now, but the lazy river wasn't so lazy and relaxing on our trip down. There were so many floats in the river that you had feet in your face and people bumping into your tube. It certainly wasn't worth the wait in line or the effort required to hoist myself up into the inner tube to play bumper tubes with everyone in the river.

We did visit a pool with a "pirate ship" in the middle, since Matthew is very much into pirates. We swam out to the 8 ft deep water so that Matthew could jump off the pirate ship. He enjoyed that. Swimming in water over your head with a small person clinging to you for dear life is quite a workout.

We finished up the afternoon in the kiddie pool, which was very warm by this point (from the increased weather temps or from all the kids peeing in the pool). Matthew was much braver by the afternoon session going head first down the slides and every other direction he could turn himself.

We called it quits by 3:30 that afternoon. Half of us slept the whole way home.

Our second daycation to Wet n Wild was with Katrina, Carlos, Ethan and Bentley on August 18. Matthew was excited all week long about going back to the "waa waa park". He was too excited to nap on the way there even. As soon as we got inside, he knew which direction we needed to head in to get to the Happy Harbor kid area. He wasted no time getting into the water. The weather for this visit was cooler and overcast, which meant that the first steps into the water took my breath away. After being in there for a little while I got used to it. Matthew was shivering, but it didn't slow him down. Bentley was having none of it to start with. Ethan liked it right away. Matthew took a couple of rides down the "intimidating" kiddie slide with Brian and Katrina. We couldn't get him to go down it the last time once he took the first trip down.

This second daycation was even more fun for Matthew than the first one. He had less fear. He swam around, put his face under and was even more relaxed in the deep water. He didn't cling to us in the wave pool or pirate pool. He laid back and floated. He tried to really swim and he really enjoyed the waves. He also tried a new slide with a double tube.

Bentley and Ethan had a ball as well (once Bentley warmed up to the idea).

With 2 successful daycations under our belt, I think it is safe to say that if all goes well next summer will hold a few daycation trips for us.