Summer Fun, part 5

On the second-to-last day of swim lessons, we paid for a day at Pirates Cove and stayed at the park after it opened in the morning.  Fun, fun, fun!  Liam wasn't too keen on it though--to much splashing and spraying water in the kids area.  He was very intimidated, and had a death grip on my neck.  There's a giant bucket that fills with water and pours out into a designated splash zone every five minutes or so, and Liam was terrified of it.  I don't know whether he thought we were going to take him under it, or what, but for the first hour that we were there, every time the bell started ringing to signal that the bucket would soon dump, Liam started saying "No ding!  No ding!"  Then he'd close his eyes and cover his ears.  Poor guy.  I was unable to take any pictures first thing in the morning because of the barnacle attached to my neck.

So after Robin got his kicks spraying Dada, and dumping pails of water on Dada, and running about in the spray, we headed over to the lazy river, hoping it would calm Liam down.

You can still see the death grip for a while here

But eventually he did relax

Robin and Dada got under the spray, while Liam and I stayed back

Kicking back

Back near the kiddie area (you can see the splash structure behind them) Liam decided that he wanted to jump into the water.  We finally got some smiles out of him!

Dean took Robin under the big bucket a couple of times.  The first time, they didn't get very wet

The second time was a bit better

Then I took Robin underneath, and we managed to find a sweet spot for drenching.  Robin was a bit uncertain after that, but quickly accepted assurances that everything was okay and that it was fun

Visiting the "beach" sandpit

Then rinsing the remainder off under the big mushroom

We asked a stranger to get a picture of us by the pirate at the entrance before leaving for naps.  Unfortunately, said stranger didn't realize that the little boy in green swim trunks by Dean's side was part of our family.  Or that we wanted the pirate to actually be visible in the picture.  *sigh*  I guess that's what I get for not checking the photo before we left.

Fortunately, we had one swim lesson left, so I asked a life guard to get me, Liam, and especially Robin next to the Pirate before we left on the last day

And here's Robin showing off that he can put his face in the water and blow bubbles (briefly, at any rate)

Another trip to the zoo, this time with a friend of mine

I love this shirt on Liam.  It's a great color for him, plus it's a good zoo shirt

We tried to help Robin learn to throw better (for t-ball) by playing with water balloons

These were our "swim trunks" for kiddie pool day

We created another "visual calendar" to help Robin count down the days until preschool starts again.  More details will be on Science Fiction Mommy (eventually), but I wanted to share this video of how well Robin can use scissors now

Liam uses scissors a little bit, too