Splash Village

We brought the kids for a trip to Splash Village in Frankenmuth this weekend. It was a belated Christmas gift from Pepper, Dad B, Dad D and I. We decided this would be a great place because it is supposed to be a german themed place and Kiwi is from Germany. It was amazing how excited Dill was to get here. Every time we passed a billboard about the place he squealed in delight. He is getting mighty fast on the math too.... figuring what mile marker we were at and how far we had to go. Seeing the water slides sticking out of the hotel got all the kids excited.... you'd hardly believe that these kids each swim everyday after school on their swim team for how excited they were! In the car, Pepper announced that last time (and the first time) we came here, she had never gone down any of the slides. The boys made it their mission to get Pepper, not on one, but ALL the water slides the place had to offer this trip. She was a very good sport and joined them at everything they asked (except once when Dill wanted her to go under a cold waterfall right after she got out of the "hot pool". Dill pouted about it for a minute but bounced back quickly.)

I have to say Pepper really entertained me this weekend.... she had me smiling constantly. Now I always find her cute... she is. I know it is Valentine's Day, but she was down right adorable this weekend. First of all, she is much happier being able to sit beside the pool with a good book and wave at the kids and I having fun in the water..... but she did not do that this trip. She was a real trouper. She willingly got dragged onto all the waterslides every time one of the kids wanted to go down, she carried tubes up the two flights of stairs, she wandered around the basketball nets and the lily pads and all the spigots designed to splash as you go under them, but the funniest thing was the giant water bucket.

I came into the pool area looking for Pepper, Dill and Kiwi with the rest of the kids. I searched around all the people in the places I thought she'd be..... with a book at our table or in the hot tub... and couldn't find her. I heard the bell start to sound that meant the giant bucket of water was about to spill and looked up. I saw someone that looked like Pepper standing right in the 'line of fire' for the giant bucket of water and thought..'That can't be pepper, she isn't running away from the water.' Just then the water spilled and I realized it WAS Pepper. The pressure from the water made her long hair fly straight back... for a second it looked like she was flying down a hill on a roller coaster... it still makes me giggle as I type it!! It was so un-Pepper like!! :)

This morning she was the first one up and she went down to the car for a minute but was gone a long time. I tried to reach her on her cell phone (which rang in the room) and saw that her purse was still where she set it... so I got up to get dressed to go find her. She came back a little later with a big smile. She had gone to the game room and hit the big money on one of the games. We walked back down together and she won two MORE big games!! She had tickets spewing out everywhere!! We turned them in and went back upstairs to check on the kids. They were all amazed at how many tickets Pepper had won (697!!) ... Dad B said that he had gotten $50 in coins for the kids and they hadn't gotten that many tickets (Pepper spent $5)! I played a couple games and combined my tickets with Peppers (I won about 12 total!!) Pepper used her winnings to buy me a hat and a couple toys for work, but the biggest gift she gave me was the sparkle in her eye when she was turning in all those tickets and the laughs I got watching her play with the kids.

A very nice Valentine's Day for all of us. :)