Frustration and Fun Stuff

Today, I was very frustrated to find that the landscaping crew took the weedeater to my new corn plants! 5 plants got cut down - I didn't have that many plants to begin with so losing 5 is a big loss. I called my mom in a hurry to find out if the plants would indeed die or if they would continue to grow and grow new leaves. She said they'd probably die so Abbie and I replanted them. I called Paul too and he said he'd put a fence around it so hopefully this won't happen again.

Yesterday, Abbie and I joined my brother and his family for a fun, fun day at Splash Country in Sevierville/Pigeon Forge. This is a large water park owned by Dolly Parton. It is an offshoot of Dollywood. There are 3 water playgrounds, several high thrill water slides, some medium thrill water slides and several tame ones for little kids. There is also a large lazy river and a wave pool. We have had really nice weather lately - sunny, yet breezy, and not too hot. Very, very pleasant! So we did not bake yesterday. When I first arrived at the park (it was my first time there), my brother pointed to the slide that I had to go on first. I said, "Sure!" in a nonchalant way because I've been to a really nice water park in Virginia that had plenty of intense water slides. The slide was called Mountain Scream, and I was excited to ride it. It took me 4-6 seconds from top to bottom, and I was fairly speechless as I got off. I was completely discombobulated. Not only could I not keep my eyes open as I went down, I had no idea where I was, my arms kept flying open, I couldn't tell if I was airborne or still on the slide, and I had water up my nose and felt like I was under a tube of water. Was I drowning? Dead? Was it over? I didn't scream or cuss - I was just speechless at the end. When I finally realized that it was over, I stumbled off the slide and discovered that my brother was laughing at me and I had broken my sunglasses (my brother fixed them though). I didn't ride that one again, but surely I could do it again since I lived to tell about it, right? But I have to draw the line somewhere so I will never ride this one.
We stayed until the park closed at 7 pm. Abbie said, "I never want to leave Splash Country." She really had fun with her cousin in the water. I bought season passes as we left so we can go back as many times as we want, and we can go to Dollywood as much as we want too. We're really looking forward to more of this fun this summer. I told Paul that he and I need to go by ourselves one day (because Abbie won't ride any of the thrill rides and she doesn't qualify for the height requirement for others, but she still had a ton of fun doing all the other stuff) so that we can do all the big slides together. Except for Fire Tower Falls.
In other water news, Abbie is swimming in the deep end. With her instructor with her but not touching or helping her, she can swim across the deep end. She has also learned to tread water, swim on her back, streamline underwater, and has really strengthened her freestyle. But she still lacks confidence and hangs onto to me if we go into the deep end together, but I saw her using many of her skills yesterday at the water park.