Kalahari

We took a family vacation to Kalahari water park resort in Sandusky, OH this past Thursday through Saturday. It was an excellent vacation for our family. The girls were all at different heights so they could only do certain things. Ella was in the 42 inch mark (she is 45 inches I believe) so she was able to do lots of rides, and slides. At 48 inches she will be able to do everything. Claire was able to the kid play area, hot tub, lazy river, wave pool and one other play structure. The only time she complained about wanting to do something she couldn't was when she wanted to surf like Ella, Mommy and Daddy. We didn't actually stand up, but we did a boogie board type of thing. It was awesome. Ella did so well at this and didn't even hold on the board at one point. She was flapping her arms and then making a silly face. She was prompted to do this by the guy who helped her get on the board. I was happy that I did not lose my swim suit! There was a girl who did that day. Her bottoms came off and tore completely. The lifeguard at the top of the surfing is there with towels in case someone's suit comes off. Needless to say, the water goes fast!

Claire's favorite thing to do was the kid area with the little yellow slides. She went down those slides over and over and over again. Ella loved the wave pool and got very brave, and very defiant about staying close to Steve and I. Rosalie turned into quite the water baby. She really loved the lazy river. She was so stinkin' cute in her life jacket. One of the biggest surprises for me and Rose was the huge bucket of water that got dumped on us while we were standing and watching the girls play in a structure. We had no idea that this "bucket" if you want to call it that, dumped every five minutes. We were SOAKED. Maybe 100 gallons of water dumped on us. Again, glad my swimsuit stayed on...heard of some other woman who wasn't so lucky... Amazingly, Rose did not cry, but we sure were shocked!

The first day we got there, we started swimming at about 1pm. We stopped for dinner, then went right back out there till about 8:30. The kids were so tired that there were no problems with sleeping all together in the same room. Everyone had their own bed as well, and that was nice for them. The second day, we started out swimming at 9am. We never got out of our swimsuits the whole day. I went upstairs with Rose at 9pm to put her to bed. She had only taken a two hour nap that day. By 9:30 the other two came up with Steve. 12 hours in my swimsuit was really enough for me! Again, so tired that everyone passed out watching the Olympics.

The last day we started again at 9am. The enthusiasm of the kids had really worn off and we were not being begged to go here, there and everywhere. There was a lot more sitting and just chilling out this day. We started packing up at 1:30 and then we were on the road by 3. Everyone passed out in the car on the way home.

Ella was adventurous and went on everything we told her would be fun. She only gave us a hard time about one slide that she got splashed in the face. I kept telling her we were at a water park and we were going to be splashed in the face all day long. She got over it, and went on the slide with me again. She didn't get splashed the second time. It was great to have friends there with us because we were able to trade kids, and leave the little ones behind so that the grown ups could go on the other slides. That was key to having the best time for sure. Next time we will rent a cabana so that we can have a more comfy place to relax and spread our junk out. We will be going back, there is no question about that. Best water park ever.

The unfortunate part of this trip was that my camera broke. It was being funny before we left, but I thought it was just a bum rechargeable battery. Turns out it wasn't. I was able to get 30 pictures before it died. I purchased a 35mm, waterproof camera. Yes, they do still make them. Don't know what those pictures are going to be like. Thankfully, our friends took some great pictures of the kids for us with their camera. We have looked into getting it fixed and it isn't going to be cheap. We could get a new camera for the price of fixing it. So we are going to upgrade to a really nice SLR camera because we have wanted one for a long time now.

The other bummer part of this trip was Pancake. She did not fair so well being boarded. She was at Union Lake Vets, which is also our vet. She ended up getting stress colitis. She was basically pooping liquid with blood. She did this on our kitchen floor right when we got home. She was put on doggy immodium. She is not very hungry and she seems to be a bit depressed. We will be looking into having a friend watch her the next time we have to go out of town. We don't want to put her through such stress of us being gone. They said she was happy, but on the day we were picking her up, she got very stressed out. Poor poochy.

Other wise, we had so much fun with our friends, and our little ladies. We HIGHLY recommend this water park!