The Beach

For doing well in school, the kids got some coupons for free admission to The Beach Waterpark.  On top of that, everyone else in the party is admitted at half price.  The kids had 3 free admissions, so we went to the park for around $50 instead of $175.  (One of the years the kids received one 1/2 off admission to Kings Island.  They were always upset when I told them that we still couldn't afford to go.  But $50 to a water park for a group of 6?  That's a deal.)

The days you can go are non-peak days, which was fine by us.  Seriously, who wants to go there when it's packed?  We arrived as close to opening as possible and found out that the main clientele on an end-of-summer week day at 10:00 a.m. is the over-60 addicted-to-sun crowd.  Eww.  Better or worse than teenagers with too-skimpy swimsuits?

Anyway, the kids had a great time.  The older 3 went with Rob on all the rides.  No lines at any of them, which was great.  Tank was too short for the rides, so I watched/read my book while he played in the wave pool and the little kid area.  Not a fan of water so much. 

One funny story.  Tank wouldn't go to the little kid area.  I think he was insulted because it was for the little kids, and he felt like he should be able to ride the big kid rides.  Finally, halfway through the day, we convinced him to try it out by making everyone go.  And he loved it!  It has a little area where you can ride 2 little inner tube rides, designed for the younger set.  This was all fine except for the fact that he kept getting stuck on one of them, going around and around, like in a whirlpool, instead of continuing down the ride.

The others had left to go on more rides, and I was reading my book.  I would look up every few paragraphs, locate Tank, and then go back to reading.  Well, I hadn't seen him for a few pages, so I got up to see where he was.  I last saw him grabbing an inner tube, so I went up to the rides.  And there he was, going around and around.  I caught his attention and waved to him.  He waved back, all chill.  "Are you stuck?"  He nodded.  "Do you need help?"  He nodded again.  I walked over to the life guard and asked her to help him out.  (They try to pay attention, but that one spot is just out of view from where they're supposed to stand.)  She walked down and pushed him on his way.

Later I asked if he had been waiting there long.  He said, "Yeah.  It was like an hour!"  Cracked me up.

I personally don't really enjoy rides so much as I completely dislike the feeling of my stomach jumping.  I did one that I liked alright, and then the lazy river, which is always fun.  And then I read my book.  I'm adventurous like that.

Rob decided that I would like one of the rides, a 2-person ride.  As we were walking up to the top, I saw a fairly slow-moving ride and went, "Oh, this one!"  He said, "No," and pointed to another ride that had lots of dips and started much higher up.  He said, "It goes much faster."  I stopped walking, "Do you hate me?" 

By the end of the ride I decided that Rob's judgment is WAY off.  I'd say even broken.  I kicked him as we got off at the bottom.  He said, "I really thought you'd like it!"  Umm, no.  Apparently that ride didn't make Rob's stomach jump at all.  "They were just little dips," he said.  He then told me I could go on the slow-moving one that I'd seen, and I just glared at him and went back to my book. 

Next time, when Tank is tall enough to ride all the rides, Rob's coming back, just him and the kids.  They enjoy the park while I just enjoy being with my family AT the park.  Big difference.

We ended the day tired and sunburned.  Like so:

That's a sign of a good day.