the paquettes

Water parks.  They are frustrating for a person like me.  Why?  Because I feel that it is an event with my kids that I MUST document with high quality pictures, however, a water park is not exactly the best place to bring my very nice camera and lenses.  So, I did take pictures today, (with my friend’s camera), but begrudgingly. I really wanted to get ‘the shot’ where the girls are flying down the slide in their tubes, but of course, I can’t.  So if we were near our locker, and I was in the mood, I got out the camera and took a few shots.  So what I’m trying to say is that I’m not super excited about these pictures.  😛

We thought today would be a good day to take the girls on their first trip to Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels. Today is the second to last day that the water park is open this year so I thought it wouldn’t be too crowded.  We had promised the girls to go this summer, (they had even been saving their chore money for tickets), and summer came and went so fast that before you know it, September was here and we were down to the last weekend it was open!  So we really were praying for good weather!   As I checked weather.com in the car halfway there this morning, it was slightly nervewrecking to read 95% chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.  We told the girls our game plan-go on as many slides in the morning as possible!  But after we bought the freaking expensive tickets, I decided we would battle the rainstorms and spend as long as possible there!  🙂  When we got there, the girls were excited and then Ella, after seeing the tube slides, quickly decided she was scared and wanted to go home.  You can see the fear in her face in this picture.

Ella is not so sure about this place!

We forced our girls to go on the tube slides (another drawback of uncompassionate parents), and the water was FREEZING! After all, it was an overcast day and it was only 80 degrees outside! Ella was not a fan of any of the tube slides. But we promised we would head to the kid section and then she relaxed a little.

Rilyn

Ella

James really wanted to do the Boogie Bahn ‘ride’ where you try to boogie board. He asked me if he looked like a Californian after the ride and I told him Californians don’t boogie board with their glasses on. 🙂

time to boogie

good thing I have my glasses on so I can see the water splashing in my eyes!

The lazy river was a hit especially when they found an alligator to ride on! James was having fun trying to tip them over!

My thoughts that Schlitterbahn wouldn’t be crowded were wrong. We waited on a slide that was labeled “high thrill” for an hour and a half and Ella fought us the whole time. She made up excuses, cried, made us hold her…but we didn’t budge. Remember, we have very little compassion. After the slide was done, she told us that was best slide ever. (Using lasers, they project a dragon head on a waterfall that is falling over you in a dark tube so it looks like the dragon is eating you.) It was Rilyn who was complaining how scared she was!

my freckled beauty

Then came the rain. It poured for like 30 minutes. We were COLD and WET. Not fun. But we walked to the last park (there are 3), to try and enjoy a couple more slides. The girls were done with slides though and we didn’t want to really wait in the long lines, so we opted for the kid area again. This park had a pirate ship.

Ella going down!

Rilyn took it upon herself to be the ‘slide lifeguard’ at the pirate ship area. For 20 minutes I saw her at the top of the slide making each child give her a ‘ticket’ (a high five) before they could go down the slide. She made them go one at a time and told them “No alcohol.” (I’m sure she said this because every time we went into a new park, they would check our cooler and say, no alcohol or glass bottles inside.)

Rilyn making the boy give her his ‘ticket’

Ella always looks so funny going down slides!

And finally, did you know Schlitterbahn has a mascot? Apparently, Schatze the dog represents!

Rilyn with Schatze

We decided at the end of the day (we stayed about 6ish hours), that we will go back in a couple of years. We want Asher to go with us next time and he needs to get older, and we want the girls to go on the slides because they want to and not because we are forcing them to!