World Waterpark

For spring break, we decided to go to West Edmonton Mall for three days. We had gift cards for the Best Western Hotel, so we stayed there. We drove up on Monday and hung around in the mall for a while. By amazing coincidence, we ran into Andrew Livingstone and his family. Andrew is the little person close to Austin's age who lives in Edmonton and is also LDS. They had a French exchange student visiting and had brought her to Galaxyland. We tagged along with them for a while, and then met Glen and Lindsay Eklund for dinner at Boston Pizza. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them. It was pretty neat to see them again though. Austin and their son Parker were best friends in Rocky and they picked up right where they left off. Preston also seemed to hit it off with their youngest son, Cameron. Alyssa and their oldest daughter Brooke seemed to have more in common now than they did when we all lived in Rocky. As for me, it seemed like way to short a time to catch up with Lindsay who was one of my best friends and favorite people.

On Tuesday we went to World Waterpark at West Edmonton Mall. We were there from 11 am to 6:30 p.m., if that gives you any idea of how fun it is there. It is a massive indoor complex, with the sun shining down on you through a glass roof. There are 17 waterslides, apparently, though I couldn't keep track, and a huge wave pool. There are also hot tubs, a splash park, and a kiddie pool. Mark did really well all day. For most of the day, we just sat in his wheel chair, and listened to his shows as we wheeled him around to all the places we went. In the last hour we were there, I put on his swim suit and put him in the water which he also enjoyed.

Alyssa climbing the stairs. There was lots of stair climbing over the course of the day. One slide is nearly 10 stories high.
Mark getting some love from his family in the kiddie pool.
Austin at the spray park. He is filling his bucket of water to dump on some unsuspecting person's head.
Alyssa and Preston in the wave pool practicing back floats.

A view of the wave poolA view of the slides
Alyssa waiting to catch Preston as he comes down the corkscrew slide
Alyssa at the bottom of the howler
Sitting on the beach just before lunch
Contrary to how it may appear, this is a "beginner" slide that Rob has just come down.
Classic Preston.