Schlitterbahn with friends!

This summer when my family came out here to Texas to visit, my mom bought two day tickets to the water park,  Sadly, after the first day, Bradley and Alexandra got extremely sunburned (despite the sunscreen, they are just too fair skinned).  So obviously, we didn't go the second day. The tickets were already purchased though, so my mom gave them to me to use. After August, Schlitterbahn was only open on the weekends, making it really tricky to find a full day that Paul could come with us. By the end of September, I realized that I had better use them before they expired, so I called up some friends and away we went, without Paul. Sorry.  I love that the weather here in Texas is nice enough to go to the water park the last weekend of September. Hooray! My friends Mindy and Susannah both came along with all of our kiddies, 9 total. One 7 year old, one 5 year old, one 4 year old, two 3 year olds, two 2 year olds, and almost 1 year old and a newborn. What a sight. Here's the group shot, minus Solace, who was sleeping in the stroller.

We went to a lot of the same pools and areas as I did when we went earlier with my family, but we also went to lots of new ones. I took almost 200 pictures (yikes!) but have narrowed it down to 57.  Here are some of the day, we had the best time! Thanks mom for all the tickets!

Lullaby tried to be brave and walked all the way to the top of the slide by herself. Then she got scared, started to cry, and came down.

I caught Summer loving on her momma. Summer is Lullaby's new favorite person. When I told the kids (the night before going) that we would go to the water park, Lulli went to sleep singing "Fummer fimming... Fummer fimming... la la la". She sings to sleep almost every night.

Mindy and Susannah thought they could manage taking ALL the big kids (all 8 of them) on the lazy river, while I sat with Solace and all our stuff at the tables.  Here they are trying to figure it out. So funny.

In the end, Susannah went with her three because the rule for this lazy river was that each person had their own inner tube spot, so all the doubling up we were trying to do wasn't going to happen.  Turns out the rule was there because this river was not lazy, it was crazy. Here are Susannah and her kids riding the rapids while we watched!

Later on I went with just Hawk on the river. It was nice to spend some time alone with him. He loved it and screamed and laughed with excitement at each crazy part in the river. I also got to sneak away with Matix and slide down some of the bigger slides that Hawk was afraid to do. Matix and I had tons of fun on those too.  When I was away with the big boys, my friends watched my little ones. It worked out well for everyone.

I love these of Lullaby with her new friend Caroline.  They were so cute together.

Solace slept most of the time in his stroller that I moved from area to area while I watched the big kids. Thankfully they are such water babies, I wasn't really worried about them much at all. Plus we had been here before and they were fairly comfortable with the place.

We went to a wave pool, where Hawken is (oddly) most comfortable. The only picture I have of him was this... (Hawk is that little head out in the water up and to the left of Matix who is sitting down)

Hawky kept walking out super deep and then riding the waves back in. In still pools though, he is my most nervous and cautious.  Not with waves... Why? Matix and Lulli splashed in the shallow wake.

Check out Hawk's muscular chest. This boy is too strong for his own good.  You can't get him to flex like this on command, but every once in a while I catch it on camera.

Trying to trick me into coming to him, as if I couldn't see that he was under a waterfall... Silly Matix.

Posing for the camera. Work it! Work it!

Matix and Hawken loved going down the slides with their friends. It was so much fun. Really, we were there ALL day. We got there when it opened and left just before dinner time. Thanks Susannah and Mindy for coming with!