Splishing & Splashing

Official website photo - you can tell because the picture is actually in focus and it's not being

swarmed by approximately 300 kids

This is how all my photos turned out - blurry. But, this was one of the kid's favorite areas

We are back from our little mini-vacation (2 days and 1 night) to the indoor water park! We drove up Thursday morning and spent the day going down water slides and splashing and swimming... what a nice break from winter!! It was bizarre to be warm & cozy in swimsuits and then look outside and see snow covering the ground! The kids loved this place, and even though it was packed because of school vacation week, I never felt like it got too chaotic or crowded. The boys wore their matching swim shirts, which not only keep them warm, but in this case, made it really easy for Chad and I to always pick them out of a crowd. Their favorite part was the second picture above... a pirate ship with water slides ending in a little wading pool with fountains and buckets that tipped over water and such. The wading pool was 2 feet deep and the kids loved swimming around in it and then crawling all over us. They also loved some of the bigger slides in the other sections, plus the lazy river that encircled the park... whenever we got a bit tired, we would just hop on some innertubes and float around the "river". There was one section of really big slides that the kids weren't tall enough for yet, but Chad and I took turns going up on them and that was definitely a blast for us.

The night we stayed, we drove into the nearby town and found a really good Thai restaurant for dinner... Chad was pushing for some chain called the Texas Road Kill or something cuz he really wanted some ribs, but he got overruled by the rest of us. Luckily, our trip to the Thai restaurant was quite fortuitous because there was a ice cream parlor right across the street... score! Parker in particular had been asking for ice cream (I think that after our week in Cape Cod, they just think ice cream is an inherent part of any vacation, as well it should be). I was not sure we'd be able to find ice cream in February in Massachusetts, so this was very exciting... and they even had my favorite flavor - peppermint!

After all day at the water park, and then dinner and ice cream, the kids (and Chad and I) were really tired. But, of course, they immediately perked up as soon as we tried to get them to bed. They were thrilled to be sharing a bed in the hotel, and they just couldn't stop giggling and fake snoring and climbing all over each other. I actually went in the bathroom with a Newsweek to wait for them to fall asleep, but Chad stayed in the room with them and watched his i-pod. After they had been in bed about 90 minutes, they both got up to go the bathroom, and I peeked out... Chad was asleep! Pretty funny that the boys were playing in their bed in the dark, creating all sorts of commotion, and meanwhile, Chad falls asleep. I think he's the only one who got a full night's sleep! Anyway, the boys eventually settled down, and I was able to go to bed, too.

The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast and then hit the water park again, bright and early around 9:30am. We spent all day playing until around 3pm when Parker just seemed worn out... I think Brandon could have hung in their longer, but Parker was starting to lose steam. Anyway, we dried off and changed, spent a few last minutes playing skee ball and air hockey in the arcade and then headed for home. It was such a nice little getaway... so close to home that I didn't have to worry about much packing... the best parts of a vacation without any of the stress of having to make many preparations.

Yesterday, we got settled back in - did laundry, went to the library and Costco, and then I got to spend a couple hours in the afternoon outside on my bike!! It was the first time in about two months that I felt the roads were sufficiently ice-free enough for me to be outside. We got around 4 inches of snow on Tuesday, but then it got above freezing every day after that, so the roads and shoulders cleared very quickly. It was soooo nice to be outside, as opposed to pedaling away on the spin bike for hours at a time. Although, my legs felt really good on the bike, so all that spinning is definitely paying off. Anyway, suffice to say that being outdoors yesterday definitely gave me a case of spring fever. Just a few weeks more of winter...