Disney World - Blizzard Beach

We spent our Friday of Disney week at Blizzard Beach. We set up a base under a pavilion adjacent to the kids' area and had a fun day riding water slides. Although this was Chuck's favorite day and the girls' second favorite, it was difficult for my 8-month-pregnant wife. She was a trooper though and never complained.

We didn't take many pictures of the big rides because we couldn't carry our camera in the water. However, the PhotoPass photographers got some great ones of people coming down the rides.

Both Leland and Lucy loved the kids slides.There were various slides of different lengths, water pools and waterfalls, and even a kids' tube ride. The area was so well designed, that the kids were not at all afraid to go on the slides on their own. That resulted in some nervous parents when the kids would just run off to go play in the water. Luckily, everybody had brought life jackets and we all helped keep track of the kids.

All the kids had fun splashing around and playing with one another. Conner was playing around trying to float on his back and Lucy kept trying to "help" him up. She was being so funny.

Here are lots of pictures of the girls on the kids' slides. They seemed so big and grown up going down all by themselves.

At one point in the day Goofy strolled through the kids' area. He had a following of children then he stopped to take ONE picture and that was with our girls. The photo pass girl snapped it so quick the girls weren't looking and Lucy didn't get in her usual seated pose. A line quickly formed of other kids to take a pictures too, but he just walked away after their picture.

Leland really liked the big water slides where you rode on mats - Toboggan Racers and Snow Stormers. I cannot remember how, but early in the day Mitzi and I somehow ended up alone with the four oldest kids (Denim-5, Leland-4, Connor-4, and Tara-3) for what was the kids' first adult ride of the day. It was Toboggan Racers, where you have eight lanes for a "race" down on your mats, so naturally, you can't have one adult go ahead of the kids to catch them. I realized this conundrum while standing in line and began getting the kids really excited because "We get to ride on Aladdin's magic carpets in a race!" They bought it and Mitzi and I put one kid on each side of us and pushed them down before we started. Picture me, after having pushed Leland and Denim down the slide, then getting on my mat and pushing hard to slide down to catch up to them. Let's just say that my body mass generated enough speed to race past them before the first hump. The kids LOVED it and all jumped up screaming "AGAIN!" We did it and the other mat ride five times before we told them we needed to go rest.

Teamboat Springs, was a fun family tube ride for three of us. I convinced Ashley to come with us and she regretted letting me. The rest of us loved it. In our afternoon ride on Teamboat Springs, Leland and I joined the Hocks and I told them that we needed to lean into the curves and get going really fast. Well, Mike's leaning was not nearly as intense as mine, which resulted in us banging heads and my sunglasses splitting in half and flying into the air. Nobody was hurt, except for Lani busting her gut laughing at the two of us.

The waterpark closed at 5 PM, so we made the kids push through the day with no naps. They all handled it very well and we headed home at 4:30 PM wiped out after a fun day. That night, we enjoyed some takeout Pei Wei. One of the last times we ate food from Pei Wei was in CA and Ashley ended up in the ER to have her gall bladder removed. Luckily there were no visits to the ER this time.