Lots of Pictures

We've been having tons of fun with grandma! This blog is going to be more pictures than words, but I wanted to show some of what we've been doing.

First we went to IPEZ, which is a indoor party center filled with giant blow up slides and obstacle courses. Aunt Carley works there and got us in free. Alex, of course loved it, and he wanted to race anyone who would down the slides. And everything doubled as a trampoline.



Then we went to work with grandma. She works as a massage therapist at a Marriott resort. We spent most of our time there in the pool. There was a little boy from Chicago there who was nice enough to share his toys with Annie. Also, I think Alex was inspired by video of his friend, Andrew, jumping in the water, so he wanted to do the same thing. He had his little blow up tube and jumped over and over into the deeper water. The last time he tried to jump in just him, so we had to have a chat about learning to swim first.
Yesterday we went to Aquatica. I know I've already raved about this place, but I love it there. We went about two months ago, but it's amazing how much bigger and how much more confidence Alex and Annie have gotten since last time. Alex went down the slides like he'd never left. And he even ventured over to the bigger kids play area (5-12 year olds) and went down their slides over and over and over again. They aren't little slides so I was so proud of my baby. The rule at Aquatica is that if you are under a certain height, you have to wear a life vest to be anywhere near the water. Alex and Annie had theirs the whole day. Alex's new skill was learning how to control his buoyancy in the water. He can't swim by any stretch of the imagination, but he can control where he's going in the water. His new favorite ride was the Raging Rapids. It's a Lazy River but not so lazy. It's hard for me to stand up and not get dragged forward. Alex didn't want us to touch him at all when we went there. He wanted to "swim" all by himself. He made a point to touch every little waterfall he could as we went around. They were both so tired.
There was another ride that I hadn't been on before. It's a double tube ride. I went on it with Shaun and Carley and we had fun doing it. Later in the day I asked my dad to go on it with me. He weighs more then either of my previous partners and so we got going pretty fast in that tube. There are two drops at the end of the ride, and by the time we got to the bottom of those we were going really fast. I was holding on cause at the bottom of those water slides, it bounces you pretty good as you hit the water. With the extra weight in the back and the speed, we hit the bottom of the slide, and I went flying right off my tube! Definitely take someone with more ballast if you are going to ride those water rides. We can't wait to go back!