final Watiki visits

For the last two years Terry's folks have given us family passes to Watiki waterpark for Christmas. But this year we'll probably take a break, thus, the title. Here are some photos from our last two visits. 

The weekend before Thanksgiving we made our first trip since summer. And... I'm not even sure what to say about this photo...

Is that Samuel or Ezra?

For the first few visits to Watiki the kids were afraid of the huge bucket overturning it's water on the kid area, but now Noah and Evie (and even Samuel today) like it. There's Noah in the water. 

My chiropractor knew that we often visited Watiki and at my last appointment he gave me a free pass. Very sweet of him. We brought cousin Grace with us.  

We made sure she didn't drown :) 

I don't know what it is, but the kids always do a lot of playing with their tongues and sucking on their hands at Watiki. Ew. 

This cracks me up. Ha ha! Noah.

Grace face! 

I ran into the restaurant/bar area and took a photo of all four of the kids in the slide that goes through there. Dripping, cold and awkward but worth it. 

The rest of the photos are from our visit today during Christmas vacation. We wish their hours began earlier during the week (4pm) because we would go more often. Terry's day off is Friday and by the time 4pm rolls around, we're already worn out or busy with something else. During this break and summer they open at 8 or 9am. 

Samuel made some serious headway today. Not long after we had been there, he, Noah, and Evie spent a long time in the kids area. Samuel used to be very afraid of being up there, especially alone. Today he spent like an hour of time sliding all by himself. Score!

After I took Evie down the big slides three times, I was exhausted (we worked out this morning so my legs were done). Next Terry took Ezra and Noah down the big slides two times. He said Ezra was fine with it until they went to get in the tube but when they came out he yelled, "I did it!" He did the same thing the second time and then freaked out when he saw me. He cried for a while. How cool do they look though?! 

Rowing to the edge. 

Terry took Noah and Evie up the slides a few more times while Ezra recovered with me and Samuel slid by himself. 

We even had lunch there today, which was a rare treat. Terry took the littles while I did nothing. 

Just floating along the lazy river. 

And they keep going... 

...and going. 

We crashed big time when we got home. I can't wait to go to bed tonight. 

Watiki with Ez

For Christmas last year, Terry's folks again got us a family swim pass to Watiki. We've been so busy though that we haven't been able to go. Finally, before Terry's trip, when the summer hours began, we spent a Friday morning there. We even took Ezra. It was his first visit since he was six months old. It's always just been so much simpler and enjoyable to let him nap at my folks, who live very nearby.

Here is his first time seeing the water. Very contemplative...

"What?! Why do you keep looking at me? What am I supposed to do?"

He loves bath time so we thought perhaps he'd run right in. Not so much. He was very careful. No funny business for him. 

We found during this trip that Samuel had relaxed somewhat. He's always been pretty afraid of the whole place. Well, there was an isolated incident of fun last fall when he went down the kids slides and had a blast, but usually, he does a lot of whining.

I tried to stay awake while Terry went with the kids down the slides. But look, Ezra sat in the water! 

Note the Samuel independence. This was unheard of previously. Also, I hope you recognize the Zoolander look. Evie had it as a baby and I was proud to see Samuel bringing it out again. 

Silly girl. Oh wait, it gets sillier. 

"Ho hum. How bored I am in this gigantic room." 

"Uh oh. He saw me. Better flirt." 

Starting to get a little bored. And hungry. 

Yep, there's the silliness right there. She gets it from her daddy. 

Samuel at Watiki

How is it that the summer goes so quickly? We had learned early in the summer that Watiki had new summer hours and was open in the mornings during the week but still didn't make it there until mid-August (our problem is that Terry's day off is Friday so we never go in the evenings when it's usually open). 

But after all the craziness of June youth trips and July vacation and school room renovation, we finally got there on August 15th. It was awesome - the most fun we've had. For one thing, it was dead. We had our pick for tables and short lines. We started out in the pool to get Samuel acclimated to the water. He has not enjoyed swimming there very much but was slowly getting better. We made bounds of progress during this trip. I got him to jump to me in the pool and then we insisted that he go down the kid slides with Noah and Evie. There are three slides to the back of this thing. 

 We started Samuel out on the smallest orange one. He did not want to go and put up a little fight but followed Noah and Evie (since adults aren't allowed up there we couldn't go). And I have to say, Noah and Evie are so great. They just took him along and didn't leave him out and did such a great job encouraging him. He he is coming down the orange slide! 

The next largest slide is the green one. And look at that smile!! 

After that the only one to be conquered was the big yellow one. But that's the funnest, longest one that goes through the restaurant so by the time Samuel went down that, I think his fears were cured. 

Three happy kids :)

We took several photos of the kids in the see-through part of the yellow slide from the inside of the water park but they were terrible. So Terry finally went in to the restaurant (which says "swimsuits welcome!") and took photos from there after I had signaled him that the kids were on the way. This makes me wish I was a kid again. I would never have left. I would have stayed 12 hours easy.

I'm glad our kids get to go. Thanks again to Gramma and Grampa Biers for the yearlong pass! 

Noah's 9th birthday

Noah turned nine years old on April 19th. We sure love that wacky, tender-hearted, sensitive, crazy boy. Every birthday for every child just seems unreal. And yet they get older every day. Prayers for them to become strong men and woman of God.

Terry got up early to go out and buy the necessary breakfast donuts. Noah even got a heart shaped one.

We got ready as fast as we could so we could go have some fun at Watiki while Ezra napped at my folks house. We had hoped getting there early (915am) would allow us to get a seat but we were wrong. It was crazy busy like always. Well, two hours later it emptied out a little and that helped. Samuel is not that big of a fan of the water, but he's doing a little better each time we go. I must have had my hair braided the day before...

If Noah's not going down a slide, he's doing these lily pad things. Guess they look more like wood...  And good Lord, look at how long that boy is!!

Pretty girl. She likes to swim. 

Work the core Evie!! 

Going around the lazy river. Samuel actually looks happy. Probably because daddy was playing with him and taking his picture. He cries most of the time I make him do this. He cries a lot. I hope learning to talk will cut down on the crying. Oh, and notice the giant blue and red bowl behind me? That's part of a slide...

Terry and Noah tried a whole bunch of times to get a shot of Noah underwater. Here's the winner. 

Every other visit to Watiki Evie said she would not under any circumstances go down the big slides. Until she was six. Well, now that she is six, she was all ready for it! She went down with daddy the first time and actually had a good time. I guess we felt so good about that success that we insisted Samuel go down with daddy too. It went decent. He was scared in the dark parts of the slide and when he came out and got water in the face or dunked under water, but otherwise he did well. Here they are in the toilet bowl part of this slide. It's fun.

After a pizza lunch Terry and the big kiddies went down more slides and I hung out with Samuel who hung out with his ball.  

After we retrieved Ezra from my folks house, I had a very hectic afternoon getting Noah's chosen meal of cheese soup and spiral sandwiches ready. In the end, I got it all done, though it was a little late. Yummy...

Since we were doing a family party / Easter meal the following night, we wanted to save the cake for then. We used a coupon for some free Eileene's Cookies in lieu of cake and let Noah open a couple small gifts.

He was super duper excited about this little Star Wars Lego set with General Greivous (FOUR ARMS AND FOUR LIGHT SABERS!!!). Phew, what a day! It was a good one though. Happy birthday to our biggest boy!

ranch Christmas 2013

Every single night I thank God that we live near family and Terry can work at our home church. I never stop feeling blessed. It's just wonderful that we can drive 30 minutes down the road to visit Terry folks and a mere 10 minutes to see mine. So that's what we did after our own family Christmas yesterday - we went to the ranch.

After a yummy lunch of ham and ribs, we opened a few gifts. Grampa and Gramma had already given us a wonderful year pass to Watiki but the kids were given some small things so they had something to open. Evie made fingerprint art and girl faces all day long.

Samuel got a ball pit! 

Noah got his first bb gun, which he tried out later. As soon as he was done opening it though, he went right back to putting together his Lego gunship he got that morning. 

Gramma and Grampa checking out their gifts. 

Grace got a baby to take care of since she has a new baby sister. 

Ezra had more things to open since he had napped through the first Christmas. He didn't get much of a chance to play with this turtle! 

Ezra loves grabbing faces. 

Shari and 12 day old Sarah! 

A new chew toy for baby Ezra that's super easy for him to grab. 

Shortly after opening gifts Terry took Noah outside for his first bb gun lesson. They started out with Terry helping Noah to stabilize the gun. 

After a few tries he hit his can! See the water coming out? Wahoo! 

Evie followed me out. 

Even though my brother grew up with a bb gun and went hunting with my dad yearly, I had never even shot a bb gun. So Terry gave me a lesson and I hit my can on the first shot. I think I could get into shooting stuff! 

Evie didn't really care but we had her try just one shot. 

She preferred to moo at the cows. She came running back to us "Mommy! Daddy! I was mooing at the cows and one of them pooped!" She's a cow whisperer.

We went back inside to play cards, eat pie and watch some TV. We watched our first Duck Dynasty episode since they have cable TV. I must say, I didn't care for it. I couldn't get into it!

Once it was dark we went outside to use up the leftover fireworks from this last summer. It was Terry's dad's idea since we didn't have to wait until 10pm for it to be dark. Though it was pretty cold and icy it was worth it.

Silly Evie was so scared. Apparently Jesse was safer to stand by than me. 

Grace - smiling. Evie- grimacing.

Everyone else was watching from inside and every time Samuel looked out they were in between explosions. He kept missing it and yelling for more. He had Shari and Gramma laughing until they cried. 

Sparklers

Jesse said Terry was Lord of the Dance since he was getting his groove on with those sparklers.