Thrill Seekers

For the last three years, we've marked the end of the summer by heading to a local water park with B and his mom J.  Our boys have been friends since they were 3 years old.  In fact, the first time they met they played in some water at a park, so it is fitting that their summer is not complete unless they have engaged in some water-related thrills.

Here they are in 2008, ready to hit the slides.

And in 2009, tired out at the end of the day.

For the first two years of our adventures, the boys mostly preferred to ride on tubes with their moms (those same moms hauled those tubes up the steps), only occasionally traveling down the slide on their own.   But in the last year, they've grown far more daring (J and I fear they are growing up…we're not quite ready for this development).  Time marches on even if your mama isn't ready and the boys are big and getting bigger.

This year, they treated the lines and the slides as a competition.  Who could get down first? (Hint: mostly the moms, as our ability to assess line length is a tad better than the 10 year old crowd).  They rode one slide that I refused to try.  It was called the Tornado and featured a steep drop and then a spin down the drain into a pool.  I didn't see this ending well for me.  It must be noted that J is much braver than I am; she would have gone down the Tornado in a heartbeat.  And while I watched as the boys waited in the Tornado line, she blithely shot down the steepest slides in the park.

At the end of our day in the sun, both boys had tan lines on their feet. 

And smiles on their faces. 

In a few weeks, these boys will head into the 5th grade.  Though I can't quite wrap my mind around it, it will be their eighth year in school together.  They have eight more years to go.  And I'm so glad that they have one another for the journey.