A fun start to the week
The children and I had a fun start to our week with a trip to the Kalahari Resort and Water Park. My brother and sister-in-law wanted to take their daughter and the children have wanted to go again since we went for M-girl’s sixth birthday in 2010. Unfortunately, Jason was unable to go with us due to his work. The resort works to make a trip doable with one parent – but having my brother and SIL there was wonderfully helpful. N-boy got to ride many more big things with his Uncle than he would have otherwise.
On the way there we listened to our new Jim Weiss CD: The Queen’s Pirate: Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Drake. I bought three CDs at the Cincinnati convention The Queen’s Pirate, Sherlock Holmes, and The Just So Stories. They’ve all been hits, just like all the others a friend handed down to us. We enjoyed The Queen’s Pirate. We also re-started The Hobbit, traveling with stories is definitely the way to go!
Once there, we found our room, got settled, ate lunch, then hit the water park. Slides, the wave pool and general play. We played for five hours or so, then went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. Everyone seemed happy with their meal. It was a late bedtime once we got changed and in bed. R-girl was in a bed by herself, N-boy and M-girl shared, and I slept in the sofa bed. I think I fell asleep first!
We awoke and breakfasted. The pool part didn’t open until 10, so it was a nice leisurely morning. Check-out is by 11:00, so we packed up our stuff and put it in the storage area on a cart. That’s a nice service they offer – and it’s free! (I did rent a locker in the pool area and it was kinda pricey) After we dropped our keys in the box, we went out to their zoo and saw the animals. They had some different animals this time including a little camel, Emus & Rheas, and a White Buffalo. We went back into the waterpark and swam and played until 3.
R-girl was funny, she wouldn’t ride any of the big slides this time, when she was 3 we couldn’t get her off them! She loved the wave pool and playing with her cousin. We had to talk N-boy into trying other slides, but once he tried each thing he loved it including the lily-pad, four-person raft slides and the zip coaster. M-girl didn’t really enjoy the bigger ride she tried (it’s a dark tunnel), but continued to love the orange and blue body slides in the tree-house area.
My children decided to wait until we were headed home to eat. We got in the car about 4 once we were rinsed and dressed and stopped one more time at the gift shops. I thought the children would sleep in the car once they ate, but they didn’t. We ate (including a whole bag of baby carrots and almost a whole bag of snap peas) and listened to the Hobbit some more. Got home in time to have pizza with Daddy for dinner.
We’re taking it slowly this morning. Everyone slept until about 8:30. We’re watching Peter Pan. We’ll do some unpacking and general cleanup after the movie. It was a fun start to the week.