SATURDAY

The next morning my back celebrated a lousy night’s sleep by going out on me. About an hour before we were supposed to meet up with all the extended family to go spend the day at a water/amusement park, my lower back gave out in a big way. Sitting and walking were terribly painful, but I took a couple Advil, iced it for a bit, and tried to make the best of it. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to sit in one place for a while at the water park, and between Dakota, my sister, and my aunts, I had plenty of help taking care of and watching the girls.

Originally our Saturday plans were to take the girls to the Children’s Museum, while the rest of the family reunion group spent the afternoon at a water/amusement park. We didn’t think the girls would be old enough to be able to do much at the amusement park, plus Ashlyn always takes a long afternoon nap, and we’ve never had much success with getting her to nap in the stroller. So we thought it would just be best if we took the girls out somewhere in the morning, and spent the afternoon back at the hotel napping, before meeting up with the rest of the family for dinner. But my aunts worked on us a bit and somehow talked us into giving the water park a try, and I’m very glad they did.

Dakota, the girls and I, had a small picnic lunch outside the park, and then went in to join everyone. The girls spent most of their time in the wading pool area and playing with some water toys my aunts had gotten for them. Emma made fast friends with her cousin, Klayton, and another (2nd or 3rd) cousin, Madison, in addition to a few other little girls who were not part of the reunion. Later, she went around the lazy river with my aunt Donna a couple times and loved it. Then Dakota tried to take her in the wave pool, but that didn’t go over as well.

Meanwhile, Ashlyn found a strange, young guy to hit on. Out of the blue, she got out of the pool and walked over to this guy who was laying out on a chair (pictured in the background below). She walked right up to where his head was and started leaning over to try to kiss him! The guy saw her by this time and swerved out of the way, looking at her like she was crazy. We were also looking at her like she was crazy, and laughing our heads off. I grabbed her just as her first kiss attempt failed, and pulled her back to be with the rest of us. We’re gonna have to keep an eye on that girl!

After all that swimming, Emma was ready for some rides, and Ashlyn was ready for a nap. We figured we would let Emma ride a few rides and then head back to the hotel for naps. But Ashlyn crashed hard in the stroller about a minute after we put her in. So we found a shady spot to let her doze, while Emma rode unlimited kiddy rides. Ashlyn delighted her sister and surprised us all by sleeping for an hour and a half in her stroller. That was a record!