Water Park Fun

A few times this summer we have taken the kids to an aquatic park in Arkadelphia. This is where I went to college (although the water park was not there in those days) and it is about 1 1/2 hours from home. I'd heard about it from a friend of mine the summer before but never got a chance to go until this year. Mitch was able to take a few random Fridays off for vacation days, and he went with me. I'm not brave enough to take both kids by myself! It is not a huge park but it's cheap to get in and the kids loved it. They have a zero-level entry area with sprayers that Ainsley especially loved sitting on or stepping on. There is a "frog slide" that Will spent most of his time on; it is cute - there are steps in the back and then the kids slide down the tongue part. There are buckets that fill up and then dump out onto whoever is under them; there is a giant umbrella/waterfall that they liked going under. There are some big animals that are anchored to the bottom but float around at the surface that the kids can climb on. There is a deep end with a couple of slides and a diving board. Our kids were not big enough to go down those slides, and they wouldn't let us go down with them. There is enough to do that our kids were plenty entertained for several hours. One Friday we met up with a family - the Brawners - that we met while Will was at ACH having heart surgery. Their daughter Abby is a few months older than Will, has Down syndrome, and had heart surgery at the same time. They have an older daughter, Maddy, as well. We have kept in touch with them since that time, and decided it would be fun to go to the water park together. After playing at the park, we all went to eat at Cracker Barrel and visited. It was a lot of fun. It's always good to see how much the kids have grown and how far Will and Abby have come since those scary surgery days!