Pump, Pump It Up

The day of Tawna's wedding (July 5) also happened to be the same day as the Demolition Derby in Salmon. This is a huge annual event, and one that my boys have never missed. They were so sad when they found out they wouldn't be able to go this year, but the wedding of a family member always takes higher priority. For weeks they watched as our neighbors the Troughton's got their cars (FOUR this year!) ready to go for the event, and they always had some sadness in their eyes that they wouldn't be able to watch these same cars crash at the derby. I wanted to make it up to them, because I knew it was a big sacrifice on their part to miss it, so I promised them that when we went to the wedding, we'd do something super fun that they would just love. 

Since Kanyon is old enough and tall enough now to go on water slides, I thought that would be the perfect activity. I reserved a hotel room right across from the Cowabunga Bay water park in Draper, and I promised the boys at the beginning of summer that the day after Tawna's wedding, we would go the water park. 

When we checked into our hotel in between Tawna's luncheon and wedding, the boys watched out the window at the water park for a while, and they became excited with the thought of going there the next day. I was glad it helped relieve some of the sadness of missing an event in Salmon that they love so much.

The next morning, we ate breakfast, packed up, and checked out of the hotel. I thought the water park opened at 10:00, but when we drove across the street at 9:50, nobody was there. A Hispanic gentleman was washing the sidewalks, and I asked him what time the park opened, but he didn't know what I was saying. I walked up to the entrance gate, and noticed that the park didn't actually open until 11. Josh was so irritated with me at this point, because he was happily reading a book when I announced that we needed to check out of the hotel when we did, and now it was all for nothing. I told him we could just get our room back for an hour, because I was sure it would be fine with the hotel, but he said he didn't want to sit for an hour in a room with restless children. Apparently there was nothing I could do to make that man happy at the moment! So I suggested that we go to the nearby store IKEA instead. He drove us there, and said he wasn't going inside (he wanted to finish reading his book). Thankfully, that store opened at 10 (perfect for us!) and I took the boys inside with me for 45 minutes. Kanyon played in the child drop-off area, and the older 3 boys explored the store on their own (thankfully it wasn't too busy, but I barely ever saw them inside!). I love that store, and I was glad for the chance to walk around at my own pace looking at furniture and home accessories. I only bought a few small things, and by the time we got back to the car, Josh was done reading his book and he was in a much better mood.

We drove back to the water park, and this time it was crowded and busy and we waited in line to get in. Once we got inside the park, we picked out some chairs to lay all our stuff on. The water slides weren't on, so we all got some tubes and played in the lazy river for about an hour.

Josh and I floated, and the boys played tag. Then Kanyon went down the Kiddie area slide. By noon, the big slides still weren't on, and we were starting to get bored.

Thankfully, my sister Tabbi came around that time. She told me the night before that she wanted to spend the next day with us because she doesn't have many opportunities to hang out with our family or my kids. She got a pizza, and we ate lunch with her, watching and hoping that the big waterslides would be turned on soon, because that was the whole reason we'd come to the water park.

A short while later, water started coming on and out of the big attraction, and the boys were once again excited at the prospect of going down the waterslides. There were some large buckets that filled, and poured water on the people below. The boys did that a few times waiting for the water level to reach the very top so the waterslides would be open.

But by 1:00, 2 hours after coming, the waterslides still weren't on. We did not want to spend our entire day waiting for them to come on. I spoke to a lady in the ticket shop, who told me that the park had run out of water the previous day (it had been the hottest day of the summer so far at 104 degrees), and that they were trying to prime the pump to have enough pressure to run the waterslides. I told Josh what the lady had told me, and he wanted to just leave and go home. Thankfully, since Tabbi was with us, she had a different idea. She said there was a Boondocks Family Fun Center not far from the water park, and we could go there instead.

I went back to the front desk and told the lady that we wanted our money back (we paid $20 a person for 4 hours, and we'd already been there 2 hours without any waterslides) because we were going to leave. She told me she would let us stay for the rest of the day for free, but that didn't work for us because we were making the 6-hour drive home to Salmon that day. She told me she would give us free passes for another day, but I told her we had no plans to come back to Utah that summer. We'd paid cash to get into the park, and we wanted our money back to go elsewhere. I wasn't going to back down, and thankfully she finally gave us our money back. 

The boys were so disappointed, but it would've been worse to keep waiting there. We drove to Boondocks, and got the 3-activity pass plus 10 arcade coins for each family member (which came to about the same price as we'd just paid at the water park). Our first activity was miniature golf (Kanyon's favorite!).

Then we did Go-Kart races next. That was so much fun!!!

Kanyon rode with Tabbi.
I got a picture of them as I was driving, which proved to
be a hard task, thus the reason why my finger is showing.

My cart was so slow that Josh lapped me!!!
He loved that apparently, as evident by his smile.

 Our next activity was the Bumper Boats. Josh, Tabbi, Kanyon, and I each got our own boat (Kanyon was tall enough for this that he didn't have to ride with anyone like he did in Go-Karts). While we were waiting in line for it, the three older boys decided that they'd rather do Go-Karts again, so they switched lines. The boats all sprayed water, which was good because it was so hot outside and the water was a welcome reprieve. This was hilarious fun activity, and I laughed so hard! Kanyon got the best boat--his spray gun shot straight out and he nailed all of us several times. My boat was the worst--my spray gun shot straight up into the air, providing me no defense whatsoever!

Kanyon on the left, and Tabbi on the right.

Josh on the left, and Kanyon on the right.

 When we were done with Bumper Boats, we watched the 3 older boys do their second Go-Kart race. Ammon got a good car this time, and was in the lead for most of it.

Micah must've got the same car I'd had before, because it was super slow and always lagging!

Jonah was always in the middle of the pack, so it was hard to get a good photo of him until the races were over.

Then we went inside and played arcades for a while. Arcades are like slot machines for children with all the ringing sounds, buzzing lights, and tickets shooting out of the machines when you get lucky. We played for quite some time until all the coins were used up, and we had about 1,000 tickets to redeem between the 4 kids (Josh, Tabbi, and I all donated our tickets to them). Then they picked out cheap prizes for their earnings (like small dollar toys and candies).

Then it was time to say good-bye to Tabbi. I was so glad she'd joined us for the day! She was so much fun to have around and she'd saved us twice that day--once with the nice pizza at the water park when the kids were getting bored, and once with her idea to go to Boondocks when Josh just wanted to leave and go home early.

On the way home, we noticed that the water park STILL didn't have their water slides turned on (this was 3 hours later), and we knew that we'd made the right choice to leave when we did. We stopped in Tremonton just long enough to eat dinner with my parents before driving to Salmon. We arrived home after 10:00 that night, a little later than we'd planned, but the day worked out good despite its early beginnings to be a vacation disaster! The boys still have never been to a WORKING water park, so we rectified that day's disappointments by scheduling to go to the new one in Rexburg next week!!! (Hopefully that water park trip will be a success!)