Thursday, July 23, 2009

Point Mallard

A couple weeks ago I took the kids to Point Mallard in Decatur. I have always pictured water parks as unreasonable expensive places that we would never get to visit. A friend clued me in, though, that during the summer Mondays and Wednesdays are half-price days, and kids 4 and under are free! That meant the 3 of us got in for only $8! To me, that's a GREAT deal!

My kids first tested the waters, but after that they went right in, thoroughly enjoying every part of the kiddie section. It really is set up so nice...there is lots of room for the kids to run and play, but you can still see the whole area to keep an eye out!

There are 2 areas specifically for kids. This one has several small slides, and a few sprinklers and water features, as well as some swings. Jordan especially liked just floating around in her floatie and relaxing. The water's only a foot deep! They both loved going down the slides. Here they were both going at the same time! They have soft foam pads at the bottom so kids don't just splash in and go under the water!
Here is the bigger kid area. It is more like a playground playscape with water splashing everywhere! They really had so much fun on this too....Jordan liked playing in the splashing water, but Lawson LOVED the slides on this one--they're more like real water slides! (He really wants to do a BIG waterslide...when we were in MI he was SO upset when he learned he was too short to ride a slide at a pool we went to!)
Again...it cracks me up that Jordan will be playing her heart out in the water, then just find a spot to lay out in the sun.
This girl is STRONG!! They had ropes to grab on to and swing. You are supposed to grab one and swing like Tarzan...Well, Jordan reached, grabbed both and pulled herself completely out of the water! At least I know she'll be able to hold her own when she gets older!
Splashing her heart out...
We were at Point Mallard for about 3 1/2 hours and the kids thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! We really had a great time! We finally headed out at 3...planning on stopping by Sonic then heading home to get a quick nap before church.
Too bad when we got to the car we found this...
Yep, that's my van stuck in the middle! When I got there that morning I parked behind the car in front of me, on side 2 of the improvised parking line. Well, when I got back to the car, some geniuses decided to make a 3rd row...trapping an entire row of cars, including me!
I called Jon's dad, who looked up the phone number so I could call and get the owner paged to come move his car. So that left us waiting. For 45 minutes. Well, the kids were just a little too tired to handle this so fo 30 of those minutes I was treated to Frantic Crying, in harmony! Lovely.
They wanted their blankies. Did I have their blankies? No. Why not? Because who would think you'd need them just to go to a water park for a few hours. Who expects to end up sitting in the parking lot for an hour? Luckily they settled for the wet beach towels. They cuddled up and finally fell asleep.
And finally the guy came. Blah, blah, blah. And we were on our way for the short, 20 minute ride home.
Ri-i-i-i-ght....you think it was that easy?

Good thing the kids were asleep, because we ran into this...
on the other side of the interstate a dump truck had hit a semi truck into another semi truck into the median. The median cracked in half, and the concrete crumbs fell onto our side of the road. Backing us up for about 45 minutes. At least we were not in the backup on the other side of the road! By the time I passed the end of the line up it was at least 5 miles long!!! Ouch!

Two hours after leaving the water park we finally arrived at our house!! Despite the crazy parking lot and traffic drama we really had a great day. I would totally suggest you go! :)
My favorite quote of the day...when we got to the kiddie area and Lawson started walking around he looked at all of it, and looked at me and said,

"Mommy, this place is woooooooooooonderful!!!"

3 comments:

Jamey said...

How great!!! The waterpark part, not the yucky car/traffic stuff.

Sunny said...

That place does look "wonderful". We will definitely have to try it out. I have been looking for that type of a water place for the kids and I never thought that it existed in our parts. I would have not had the patience to deal with the man that was parked behind you like that. And that traffic looks horrible. Glad that you all had a fun time despite the long waits.

The HoneaBees said...

I have enjoyed reading all of your summer fun posts! I had a similar issue today when trying to leave the pool. I'll post about it soon. It was all my fault though.