August 2019: Part II - Birch Bay Waterslides, Woodland Park Zoo, and Altitude

In August I bought a Groupon for Birch Bay waterslides. Unfortunately Allison came down with her first ever ear infection the day we decided to use it. She'd woken up in the middle of the night feeling a little warm, but I wasn't confident it was a fever. She might have just been distressed. I gave her some medicine thinking if she seemed fine in the morning it must not be a fever. The medicine only lasts about 4 hours, so when she woke up 6 hours later feeling fine and saying she wanted to go on waterslides, we figured we were good to go.

We picked up our friend Ria and drove nearly two hours north. Turns out I'd given Allison ibuprofen, which lasts around 8 hours, not Tylenol, which only lasts about 4. She slept for most of the drive up but woke up miserable and shivering. There was a little breeze in the morning since it's so near the ocean, but it was too sunny for her shivers to just be from cold. She was definitely sick.

I wasn't sure what to do at this point. Even if I took her home, it'd be another two hours in the car, and Tyler was happy and excited to get going. He probably would have been upset and complaining the entire drive back. Allison was going to be miserable anyway, so I figured we should just stay and let him enjoy the day. If needed I could leave him with Ria and drive around with Allison for awhile.

We tried taking Allison on a few slides, but she just wanted to cuddle. I stayed with her for awhile then swapped off with Ria. Ria made a little bed out of towels for her and she fell right to sleep on our picnic table. She slept for a decent amount of time, so Ria and I swapped off doing slides with Tyler and staying with Allison.

Tyler was on cloud 9 the entire time. He liked everything about it. He especially loved going on the pitch back tube slides and carrying his own tube (they're smaller tubes than the ones at Wild Waves, so he can hang onto them better while climbing stairs).

We got plenty of slide time in since Allison slept a ton! We covered her with towels so she wouldn't sunburn then moved her over to the shade on the grass. She looked so sweet!

On the four main slides you can hold your kid on your lap if they're too scared to go by themselves. Tyler wasn't scared, but he quickly realized it was more fun to slide with another person, so he rode with Ria or me whenever he could.

After Allison woke up she did end up doing a few of the kids' slides, though it took awhile for her to warm up to it. She would only do the super slow ones where one of us could catch her before she got splashed.

Tyler would chase her on the slow ones and go down the ramp slide backwards and tummy down, neither of which he was supposed to do.

The next day I got Allison into the doctor's office, found out about the ear infection, and got her started on antibiotics. She seemed much happier, so we drove down to the zoo on Friday. We were supposed to meet a friend there, but we had a little miscommunication and she ended up at the children's museum. Fortunately she was still able to get us in with her flexible membership, and we had a great time. We were there nearly 6 hours!

Can you find the warthog in its enclosure? It's against the back wall. It took me forever!

We were sad we barely missed out on the close up giraffe encounter. The schedule said it was available until 11am, but they took the last group at 10:50am. I wish I'd realized we'd needed to be in line by then because we could have made it if we'd known we needed to hustle. At least we made up for it with our viewing of the lion. At first we just saw him sitting on a hill in the distance, but then he walked right up to us.

We were in the right place at the right time to see this lion

From there we saw the tapirs and watched the bird show. The kids enjoyed the show, but it paled in comparison for me to the incredible bird show they have at Utah's Hogle Zoo. We saw it when Tyler was just two years old and Allison was still in my belly, so the kids didn't know what they were missing. Tyler lit up and Allison squealed whenever the birds flew across.

A zoo volunteer recommended I take the kids to feed the parakeets. I remembered how much they enjoyed doing that at the aquarium in Layton, so we went there after the bird show. They loved it! I just wish they'd give you more bird seed with each feeding. We went through $15 and still would have liked to do some more. It took awhile before Allison got a bird, but when she did she was thrilled. I love when she says "I got one! Did I got one?" She was all smiles until a bird rushed up to her on her second stick and she got slightly scratched by its claws.  She cried "the birdee cut me!" Tyler got to double up on birds after Allison didn't want to do it anymore.

 From there we worked our way around to the carousel seeing kangaroos along the way and branching off along the Northern trail.

We got some pretty decent views of the bears, elk, and birds. Allison was happy to just sit down and watch the birds with these other little girls.

Sweet Allison wanted to pet the statue wolf cubs.

Molbak's Butterfly Garden was open, but after visiting the Butterfly Biosphere at Thanksgiving Pointe I was a bit bummed by the small number of butterflies in the air.

The kids definitely enjoyed the Carousel. The only problem was they've gone to so many themeparks this year that one ride made them assume there would be more and that they could go as many times as they wanted to.

After the carousel we walked over to the Zoomazium. It was sensory day so the big climbing area was closed, but they still had plenty of fun. It was a nice indoor break.

We'd already had a full day and it was past Allison's naptime, so I thought we'd head home soon. But the kids wanted to see more animals, so we kept on going. They played in the habitat loop where both of them slid like otters and pretended to be turtles. We also got to meet a tiny armadillo.

And from there we worked our way back to the entrance where we finished at the penguins. There were a whole bunch of them swimming around from a recent feeding when we first arrived, but they'd left by the time I got the camera out. At least the kids enjoyed seeing the swarm of them. It was a great way to end our day.

The kids were hungry, so we stopped at a McDonalds with a play place. Allison had seemed fine the whole day but didn't want to play much at the play place and just wanted to cuddle. She was hot again the next day and still the next, so I took her back to the doctor to get a stronger antibiotic. That finally did the trick. She improved very quickly once she started taking it.

And for our last Adventure Friday we drove up to Altitude with my friend's son Lyric. Tyler really liked having a buddy his age to play and jump around with.

Battle time! The boys battled, but Allison just wanted to jump into it.

Bubble balls!

The boys played basketball for a bit, but it's a bit high for them, so it didn't last long. They could use a basket a bit lower.

Love watching my girl bounce!

 They're supposed to duck or jump over these, but of course, my kids climb and ride on them.

Once our jumping time was up we went to the nearby YMCA then played at a splashpad and playground. I jump with the kids and work up a sweat, so it's nice to check them into the Adventure Zone and get myself an uninterrupted shower. We really made the most of a cloudy day!