Adventure Oasis

Sam and Kate had a BIG day today. They got up early, so we took doughnuts to Nanny, my 91-year-old grandmother. She really enjoys their visits, and I need to make more of an effort to get over there, so Tuesday morning we may start including her in donut day. She fell this weekend, and when we left, as I was putting Kate in her car seat, Sam said, "I hope you get to feeling better, Nanny. Maybe we can bring dinner over next time!" She thought it was so sweet that he said that unprovoked. He really has been asking how she's feeling a lot, so I'm glad he let her know he was concerned.

Then we met my aunt and her grandson for lunch and took the kids to Adventure Oasis, a water park in Independence. 12-year-old Alex was visiting from California and had requested some quality time with Sam, so we decided swimming would be good for everyone. I was so impressed with how kind and mature Alex was-- Sam is too short for the big slides, so he and I went down the lazy river for a bit while Alex was sliding. Later I mentioned that if Alex wanted to slide some more, I could take Sam to the playground area, but Alex said, "No, I'll just do whatever Sam wants to do. I've been down all of the slides, like, 4 times now, and I'll just stay with Sam." I was so impressed! I think they had a good time together. Afterwards, Sam said, "Thanks for coming with me to Adventure Oasis, Alex." And Alex said, "Thank you for taking me Sam." Such the polite guys!

Lest you think poor little Kate was abandoned, she played in her stroller with Aunt Carolyn while Sam and I ran around. Then I took her in the zero-entry to sit in just a little bit of water. She liked that so much that I decided to let her sit in the baby pool. It looked so deep-- 6 inches-- but she loved that too. She splashed a little and then put her hands right down and started crawling off. When she looked down, her face was in the water, but it didn't seem to bother her. She crawled all over the place. And at one point, she was flirting with a lifeguard and fell backwards into the water, totally immersed. I pulled her out and she just sputtered a bit and went right back to crawling. I think we have another water baby on our hands.

We also had swim lessons after all that, so it was quite the water-logged tuesday. They had fun, but we sure are tired!