C'Mon, It's Where the Action Is!

Recently, Dan, Madeline and I took a trip to our local water park. We drive by it about four times each day and Madeline always expresses how much she'd like to go so we decided we'd take a day and soak up some sun. Dan and I are absolutely amazed at how comfortable Madeline is in the water...no fear whatsoever. Well, I'm mostly the one amazed since I come from a family where large amounts of water isn't exactly part of our comfort zones. Dan, on the other hand, I guess has a much larger comfort zone ;-)

So, last summer she was a little timid. She did the big slides once and then decided the smaller ones were more her speed. This year was a complete turn-around. By the end of the day she was marching up the hill all on her own and sliding down the tubes with no reservations. The most amazing display of fearlessness came when she decided she wanted to do the toilet bowl (aka the Royal Flush.) For those of you unfamiliar with the attraction, the "rider" lays on his or her back with hands locked behind the head and ankles crossed. You get pushed down an enclosed tube and shot out into a toilet bowl where you twirl around several times before being dropped into eight feet of water. You will never catch me on this thing being that I'm not a strong swimmer and one of the little kid life jackets would just look ridiculous on me. But Madeline was a different story. Being all of five years old, she hooked on the life jacket with no reservations, practiced her hands-back-ankles-locked position while waiting in line with Dan and was shoved down the chute like a trooper. Being that she's small, she shot out of there so fast I thought she'd lose her breath. But with hands and ankles securely locked, she got flushed with the best of 'em. She enjoyed it so much that she decided to try it again. The second time freaked her out a bit because she was dumped into the pool head first. She was a little disoriented and the "boy had to come and help" her. Thank God for lifeguards! She retired her life jacket for the day but didn't swear the ride off permanently. I have a feeling she'll be back on that one with wild abandon!

I didn't get pics of the toilet bowl but I have some others I'd like to share...



Wow...I almost look like I have a tan! Look at my hand!!! Must be an optical illusion...


She's tall enough that she can drive the bumper boats on her own! We appreciated getting sprayed since it was rather toasty outside.

She took a turn on the smaller slides to recapture her youth...

I think she's about to lose her mat!

And this one tossed her around a bit! Those are her feet up in the air...