Kelli & Madi
Brad & Ava fresh off the waterslide
Loving the pool
I guess we were getting a little case of cabin fever. We decided to get out of the house and have some fun. We booked a room in Owatonna where there was a nice waterpark. We invited friends of ours that used to live in Bigelow to meet us there. We packed up the family (which only took me about 3 hours) and were out of the house by 9:30 am the next morning for the couple hour trip. Owen was very good in the car, but did not sleep a lot even though it was his nap time. We did some shopping at the Medford outlet mall (a bit challenging with two children, but we survived) and then checked into the hotel. Brad took Ava to the pool while I took care of Owen and got us unpacked in the room. Brad said Ava did nothing but giggle with delight the first half hour they were in the waterpark. She just loved it. He even talked her into going down the big waterslide, but she accidentally went under water when they got to the bottom. She was very scared and refused to go anywhere near it again. Owen and I hung out and watched Brad and Ava play, and he was quite content watching all the action. At around 8:00 pm, Brad took Owen up to the room for bed and I got in the water. After going down the big slide with our friend's daughter Madi several times who is the same age as Ava, I finally talked Ava into going with me. She was quite content in the lazy river with Kelli. She was pretty clingy getting into the tube at the top of the slide, but after one successful trip where she stayed in the tube with hardly even getting splashed at the bottom, she was sold! She kept saying "again Mom" every time we got to the bottom of the slide. I took her at least 12 times and I was feeling it in my legs let me tell you. The next morning, I talked her into letting Brad take her again, and she enjoyed several more trips down the slide before we had to check out of our room. We packed up two extremely tired children for the drive home. Owen was not a big fan of sleeping in the car, but he didn't really cry very much for the first leg of the trip. We stopped in Mankato on the way home and hit the mall for lunch and a ride on the big carousel which Ava loved. It was a peaceful ride after that as both children could no longer resist the extreme exhaustion and slept the rest of the way home. You could really tell Owen did not get his naps because we put him to bed at 7:00 pm when we got home and he slept until 9:30 am the next morning! Amazing!
