South Padre: Day 2

Ahhh....it's been another long day, but a great one. For starters, I am feeling much better! Thanks everyone for all the well wishes! Thankfully, my husband has no qualms about calling the doc for a prescription. So last night, I took my first dose and I was already feeling better by this morning. Regarding Braelyn's hives, they don't seem to be bothering her too much, but they did flare up this afternoon. There is a camp nurse who has some Benadryl if we need it. So far so good though.

We got up this morning about 7, watched a Blue's Clues (actually Braelyn watched it and we snoozed), and then got some breakfast. After breakfast, Casey had a short meeting and while he was doing that Braelyn and I headed to the pool. Soon, Casey joined us. I got to lay out for all of 30 seconds and then we decided to walk on the beach. Braelyn had never been to the beach before, so I was excited to see how she liked it.

After a few minutes of assessing the risk, she decided she could get her feet wet, but even just standing in the three inch waves knocked her down. That only happened twice and then she took up shell collecting instead. This was big fun! She could not pass up a single shell and she gave daddy the job of rinsing them off, one by one. Some pics:

This one's for you Cynthia. No photoshop required!

After a few minutes of this we cleaned up a little, grabbed some lunch and the whole family took a nap. Glorious!

Now, the campers were spending the entire day at Schliterbahn. That, to me, sounds like a nightmare. We were invited to do the same, but I could just imagine Braelyn after literally, 7 hours at the water park. Just shoot me. Anyways, we were happy to join them after nap time, which is what we did, giving us about 2 hours there, tops! Perfect.

Ok, so it's been a really long time since I've been to a water park. I couldn't quite remember what to do. I wore my brown, white polka dotted, one-piece bathing suit (which I love, btw), my brown strapless cover up, and sporty flip flops that could be worn in the water. It started to dawn on me that I might have to walk around in just my bathing suit like all the other fools in this place! Gross! Now, I'm not being overly modest here or anything. I can be in public in my bathing suit. But, if one must be only in their bathing suit, walking around and other non-water activities should be kept to a minimum, in my correct opinion. At the water park, you're walkin' around all over the place, you're eating, you're climbing stairs...in nothing but your bathing suit!

For a while I kept my cover up and flip flops on, and only took them off when we encountered something in which I was required to get wet, but this soon became ridiculous and I was forced to abandon them. Feeling quite exposed, I suggested the Lazy River. Perfect. You're in the water. You float. You relax. Nothing too scary for Braelyn.

Ok, so this is what I was expecting the Lazy River to be...

And this, my friends, is what it actually was!...

What?! Since when is the LAZY river the circle of death? Casey and I, innocent and unsuspecting, hopped into our double inner tube, plopped Braelyn in my lap and were swept away into wild, raging rapids against our will! After we hit the first little bit, I think to myself, "Should I have gotten her one of those life jackets that are hanging all over the place?" Sure enough, I see a sign (after we're already sailing along, mind you) "Weak swimmers should be wearing a life jacket." Crap! Bless her heart, Braelyn did pretty well, considering, but after we would swish and slide around, she would say, "All done! All done!" I would have gotten out immediately, of course, but it's a trap! You have to endure 4 or 5 phases of the wild, raging rapids before there's an outlet. I felt so bad for her. After that, we stayed in the baby pool with the showering mushroom and a floating frog slide in 12 inches of water. Just our speed.

After dinner with the campers, we came back to the hotel. Casey went to speak and Braelyn and I got ready for bed. And that's where we are. :) After such a big day, I thought B might just dose right off. No such luck. But it didn't take quite as long as last night. It's progress.