Going out with a splash
Yesterday was our last full weekday of summer vacation. It’s been a great 3 months, especially the last 2 weeks, since Fred has been completely off. He finished his summer job 2 weeks ago. We’ve had a lot of fun both at home and out and about. I’ll update the to-do list later this week eventually, but I wanted to share some pictures from our last adventure for the summer.
A friend of mine won 4 tickets to Geauga Lake’s Wildwater Kingdom and kindly gave us two (since they have a little one Cal’s age, they didn’t need 4). For free, we could afford to take the risk of the boys being too little to enjoy the park it. So we decided to take the 45 minute trip up to Aurora and check out the park.
After a little bit of drama* we made it to the park, ate our lunch by our car (because you can’t take your own food in, they’d prefer you to buy their drink and hotdog combo for $10 or some outrageous price that normal people cannot afford), loaded the double stroller with towels, changes of clothes, diapers, sunscreen, and all the other baby necessities (including smuggled snacks and drinks!), and headed to the park. We were pleasantly surprised to find lots for our boys to do. While it was crowded when we got there, just after 2 p.m., it really wasn’t that bad. First we walked around the whole park, which I have to say was smaller than I thought it would be, but it still had a lot of fun things to do. Lots of big slides, a lazy river, wave pool, and the kiddie area; Splash Landing. This is where we spent most of our time. We parked the stroller near the corner of the fenced in area since all the chairs were being used, and headed for the water.
Cal was a little leery at first, but he quickly warmed up and had a blast. His favorite part was the pair of small slides that ran into about 2 feet of water. At first Fred had to walk up the steps (which were headed with a friendly lifeguard) and go down the slide with him.
It didn’t take Calvin long to work up the courage to go up the steps and go down the slide all by himself.
Meanwhile, Oliver and I were sitting in the wading pool watching Calvin. Of course I don’t have any pictures of us because I didn’t actually have my camera in the water (I took these pictures when Oliver and I took a break from the water). Because technically, the camera we have is not ours, it’s a loaner from very good friends and I really didn’t want anything to happen to it. Anyway, the wading pool area is really nice, there are deeper (about 2 feet) and more shallow (about 1 foot) areas. There are also little “rocks” that are sloped up out of the water to form benches and sitting areas for parents and kids. That’s where Oliver and I were. He sat on my lap watching all the maddness of kids splashing all round us and doing his own little bit of splashing and chatting.
After a lot of people watching, I noticed Oliver was starting to get a little rasiny, so we took another break and found a spot just outside of the wading pool near some in ground fountains. He loved splashing and grabbing at the water.
We played in the water for just a couple of hours but it was plenty. After a while Cal was getting crabby and Oliver was trying to lay his head on my shoulder for a nap. But before we left, I wanted to try the lazy river ride. Before we left the house earlier in the morning, Fred and I had talked about going on this, but I had told him I didn’t think it’d be a good idea. But with his experiences with pools, especially Magic Waters in Barberton (with their lazy river ride), he convinced me that the boys would do just fine. And they probably would have, if they weren’t already exhausted from lots of water time already. I feel bad for the people around us; I’m sure they weren’t happy with the 2 whiny/crying kids! Now we know that when they’ve had enough, they’ve really had enough.
At the end of the day, it was a great time. We all got to splash around and cool off while doing something out of the ordinary. And we did it together, as a family. Will we go back to Geauga Lake? Probably not anytime soon. But not because we didn’t have a great time. Only because it’s unlikely that we’ll get free tickets again and I cannot justify spending $25.99 per adult to go swimming for a few hours. Fred and I did agree on one thing though, we need to take the boys swimming more often. It’s not only fun, but it really helped tire them out for naps!
*So the drama: We rushed around and packed everything we thought we would need while the boys ate breakfast and watched their favorite show on PBS. We had towels, lunches, snacks, diapers, change of clothes, water bottles, pacifiers (for Oliver), sunscreen, hats, sandels, everything. We drive the 45 minutes (more like an hour really) up there and are waiting to pay for parking when I realize that I forgot to grab the tickets. I just about have a meltdown, complete with lots of inappropriate adult language as I turn the car around and drive home. Thankfully Fred was a little calmer and talked me into just going home, grabbing the tickets (while the boys napped in the car) and going back to the park for the afternoon. This is why I love him. He’s always thinking! If it had been up to me, we would have just gone home and called it a failure of a day.