Water fun!

The highlight for the kids while at Massanutten is swimming in the indoor pools. We went swimming four days in a row plus an extra blessing of being able to go to the Massanutten water park! On Monday while Dale was in the baby pool with Kaden, the older children were in the big pool and I sat on a lounge chair reading the local news on Dale's cell phone, a woman approached me. She started out by saying, "I noticed you have children. I was wondering if you would like passes to the water park." Last year we watched from a far as families played at the water park. We calculated it would cost over $300.00 for our family to get in. The woman was given four passes to the park and wasn't going to use them. They were only good for that day, Monday, April 28th. If we were going to go, we had to move fast. It was 3:30 pm already. The children thanked this woman and her husband repeatedly for the tickets as we got ready to head back to the villa. We ate a quick early supper and headed to the water park. Because of our four free passes we only had to pay $112.00 for all of us to get in. It was our understanding that we would have to pay for Kaden, but he ended up being free. I also think we must have gotten an additional discount for "twilight hours" at the park. The normal ticket price for adults and older children is $38 a piece. We felt very blessed to be in the right place at the right time to get those free passes. I have no pictures of the water park. It would have been impossible to keep my camera dry! Water was always spraying down on you from somewhere! There were three giant water slides that you rode on tubes to go down. There were two more giant slides that you went down on without tubes or mats. I had a blast! I went down all five giant slides time and time again. I was either laughing or screaming the whole way down! By the end of the night my legs felt like wet noodles from walking the three flights of stairs to get to the slides. The next day my right shoulder and upper arm were sore from carrying the tubes! This water park is huge! It had five other smaller slides, a baby section, two hot tubs -- one larger and not as hot as the smaller one. There was also a surfing simulator. Ashton, Avery and Bryson were the only ones brave enough to give that a try! There were all kinds of contraptions designed to spew water out on the people below you. It was impossible to stay dry! There was also a tubing section that took you on a ride around the park on your tube at a slow pace -- very relaxing! The water park was my favorite part of our trip, and I think the rest of the family would agree.

Bryson
Avery
Ashton

It's all fun and games 'til someone gets hurt!

This year three of the children brought their scooters along. There's a nice hill right outside the Villa. They were laughing and having a great time riding their scooters while I yelled from the side lines, "Be careful!" "Get off to the side of the road!" "Watch out for each other!" "You guys really need knee, elbow and head protection." "Try not to go so fast!" They kept insisting they would be fine. Then Brady hit a rough patch of loose gravel on the road and wiped out! He jumped up, left his scooter behind and ran limping back up the road calling, "Mom! Mom!" He ought to know by now that I am not the person to call when someone gets hurt! (I nearly passed out at Avery's ballgame two years ago when Avery got hit in the finger with the ball. It was more than seeing the blood, it was listening to them talk about how he'll loose the nail, how they couldn't get the bleeding to stop, etc.) After calling out to me, Brady fell to the ground. He later said he passed out. At that point I ran back into the villa to get Dale. My next move was upstairs to pray that Brady would be OK, and not seriously hurt. I was feeling very sick myself at this point and couldn't listen to Avery as he ran in the bedroom to give me a description of Brady's injuries. I felt weak, shaky and about to throw up! The last thing I need to hear is how bad it is! Once I calmed down some, I got up my nerve to peek out the window. I could see Dale helping Brady to walk and Brady was white as a ghost! My prayers were answered though, and his injuries weren't too bad. He had a bad scrape on his ankle and upper leg. The entire length of his back was also scraped and bleeding. No need for stitches, no broken bones, what a blessing!

No more riding scooters down steep hills unprotected again! Lesson learned -- the hard way!

At the Villa

We were no sooner in the door to the Villa when the kids started fighting over who got in the hot tub first! Nothing like a hot tub full of bubbles at the end of a long day!

The kitchen comes equipped only with the bare essentials, and so it has many empty cupboards. This year the children discovered they could fit inside, and yes, Bryson actually did sleep one night in this cupboard!

On our way! First stop, Brunswick, MD

Dale's sister, Bonnie, has a timeshare in Massanutten, VA. Each year she invites us to stay at her villa for a few days during her week. This year on our way there we stopped in Brunswick, Maryland for a history lesson at the railroad museum. After all, we did take the children out of school for three days, we needed to squeeze in some learning somewhere!
The first floor play room.

The second floor depicted how the people of Brunswick once lived with life-sized recreations of Victorian rooms. The best part for the children were the dress-up clothes!

The third floor had a scale model railroad. What we enjoyed on this floor was pointing out our favorite miniature scene.

After leaving the museum we stopped at the Brunswick park for lunch and a quick romp on the playground. We were then back in the van heading for Virginia!