On August 7th, Sophie turned 12. And I have to say is that there has been a noticeable difference in her demeanor. First of all, she has grown physically over the past year (will find out the details when she has her annual physical on the 29th of this month), but know that she is about 5’0” and about 92lbs. She is a muscular, yet slim young woman. I know I’m unable to be impartial, but I happen to think she is beautiful – both inside and out.
But let’s talk about the celebrating, shall we?
We decided the party would be on Saturday Aug 4th and to let her invite 4 friends to go to an indoor water park which is in a city about 40 minutes north of us. This required 2 vehicles to move the 8 people (3 adults and 5 kids) involved.
Linda & I opted to take the 2 more quieter girls (Leandra & Amelia) and Gail took Bridget & Tori. Sophie rode with Gail on the way up and us on the way back. All worked out lovely.
The place was a huge room with water slides the shot out of one side of the building and wove around so you zipped on inner tubes thru them and then were dumped into about 2 feet of water at the bottom, a lazy river ride (also riding inner tubes), a playground type area where a HUGE pail of water refilled every 2-3 minutes and then dumped down over all who happened to be below. FUN! FUN!
Oh, did I mention that this was indoors? And that they kept the temperature at a balmy 82 degrees? Yeah, that. Oh what a feeling. It forced you to go into the water to cool off! Whether you wanted to or not.
And did I also mention all of the other children there? Yeah, many between the ages of 1 and 15… and many youngsters that I’m sure felt it easier to pee while enjoying the water park, than take the time to go to the bathroom.
We all prayed that there were high amounts of chlorine in there. But mostly, we tried to forget about that little worrisome detail.
The tease for the adults was that in the corner of the room was a ‘tiki bar’ that served alcoholic drinks. Now how fair was that? Of course, we all wanted to go in and have a nice drink or 2 (or 3), but how could we? We were responsible chaperones… so we just sighed and looked longingly in that empty bar, as it was visible to the whole room, so who was going to be in there when their children were risking life and limb in the lazy river ride???!! Not us!
On the up side, for about 20 minutes of the 3 hours we were there (but who was counting), the 3 adults (me, Linda & my ex) enjoyed the adult area hot tub area… it was both relaxing and it enabled us to get SO hot that when we got out, the room seemed ‘cool’!!!
The bottom line was that Sophie and her friends had a wonderful time and worked up an appetite for dinner back in town at the local Archie Moore’s restaurant. Then afterwards, the girls walked down the street and we drove to meet them at the 16 Handles frozen yogurt shop. All in all, a very good day!
On her actual birthday, I had to take my Dad to a doctor appointment, so Sophie graciously came along and then we all went out for Chinese food for dinner.
Then last night, Wednesday Aug 8th, her grandparents (my folks) had made plans to take her to the local Mall (Sophie’s favorite place in the whole wide world!!) to shop for some clothes which would be her birthday present from them. She had received a few gift cards for her birthday, so she was excited to spend them at her favorite store “Forever 21”!
The shopping trip was a success and my parents were impressed with both her taste in clothes and her ability to try on high quantities of clothing in about an hour! (It’s an art!) Everyone left happy.
She isn't my 'little' girl anymore, but she still reaches out and holds my hand when we walk anywhere... until she might be seen by her friends, of course. But I'll take her hand in mine anytime she wants to put it there.
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