Summer has finally arrived! After a very wet May, which also turned out to be quite cool, the beginning of June has started giving us some sunny and quite warm days. In fact, this weekend we are regularly seeing high temperatures in the 90s F ( 32+ C)! So what better things to do than get wet to help cool off and beat the heat. It also helps that this is one of Evan's favorite passtimes right now. Pretty much everyday he asks if he can go out and use the squirters (i.e. super soakers). It's either that or he wants to play soccer.
The week before last we had a little water fight in our backyard with super soaker squirters. John has a really big one for himself and we have two smaller ones for the kids. Even a small one is kind of big for Emma to hold, but she manages and squirts it just fine. John also bought all these extra magazines to fill up extra water for a big all out fight. At one point he filled them all up and hung them from his pants. I asked him him to pose to take a funny picture, and during that moment when John was quite vulnerable, Evan got a good shot at Daddy! Caught on camera! Of course, John had to turn around to defend himself and they got in a direct face-to-face confrontation.
Look at me and all my "ammo", wait, what's that getting me in the face?
War!
Besides water fights, it's getting to be outdoor pool weather too. A few weeks ago we attended a friend's daughter's birthday party at a fun pool designed for young kids (sorry no pictures, since we were in the pool the whole time!). And then ever since we learned about this other swimming pool/water park (Bay Aquatic Park) in a town very close to us, we've been planning to visit it. We showed Evan some photos of it online and he's been wanting to go very badly since. Mostly because of its water slides (he would get so excited looking at the photos of all the water slides!). So after postponing our visit one week (to do other chores and things last weekend), we could not postpone anymore due to the fact that Evan would ask every day if we were going to get to go to the new swimming pool. And, what better weekend to check it out than on this hot and sunny weekend!
The park is about a 30 minute drive away, but really pretty close to us in the sense that it's not in the city of Denver, so traffic's not too bad to get there and they have free parking. Plus, children 3 and under are free! So at least for the next few months we could get in reasonably cheap but since we're not residents of that town, we had to pay a little bit more for our entrance fee. Yet, I think that for a total of 18 dollars it was worth it. We got there right after they opened and there was quite a bit of a line, but it moved pretty quickly. We found ourselves a shady spot in the grass to lay down our towel and set up our umbrella. We didn't spend any time there though because once we got in the pool that's all we wanted to do. They have two separate pools and a splash pad in between them. The Tot Pool is smaller and shallow, with zero entry and has a set of three water slides. Then the bigger pool still has a zero entry area with a small water slide/play area for young kids, but it gets much deeper and that's where the faster water slides are. The "squiggly" slides (as Evan calls them) are on the same side of the park as the bigger pool, but have their own small pool area at the bottom of each slide (that's only for catching the sliders). Evan went down every slide in the park and had a blast. In fact, he even went down the fastest slide they had, which was a slide in the bigger pool with five slides right next to each other that were just straight down shots in the water. He loved it because they made him go really fast! However, John ended up getting in trouble after a lifeguard noticed Evan's size and/or John catching him at the bottom, because it turns out kids have to be over 48 inches tall to go on the slide by themselves, or else have to be able to swim by themselves (and pass a swimming test to prove it). At least Evan got to go on it a few times before they got caught. On the other squiggly slides, Evan got to go down with John several times. I managed to run and get my camera for a few photos. Yet, we spent most of our time in the tot pool area because Evan and his friend Lena kept racing each other down the slide together over and over. And those slides were easy enough they could go on them all by themselves. Even Emma got brave enough to go down the slide all by herself. The first time she went down on John's lap, but then John figured she could go by herself with me to catch her. The first couple times she went down by herself she had a look of horror on her face. But then she was right back out of the pool wanting more. By the end of the outing, she went down looking much happier as she went down. It sure was a moment for me to see my baby girl going up and down these water slides all by herself!! Emma also wanted to keep jumping in the water from the edge and she was even practicing floating. She also played in the water fountains/ splash pad area. So, I was really happy to see her having fun with the water finally!
Here they come around the bend!
Evan was doing such a good job practicing his swimming by himself to get to the edge after sliding!
Emma just hanging out watching Evan slide. See the "fast" set of 5 slides in the background?
Emma had fun with the splash pad fountains. Yay!
Anyway I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures like this as the summer progresses because this is Evan's absolute favorite thing to do right now and I can't blame him because as the heat of the summer is coming on, it's all anybody should be doing on days like this! Now if I can only manage to not get my back sunburned again... (ow!).
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