Saturday, July 7, 2012

keeping cool- veteran's memorial pool

I've been reading a lot of blogs and Yelp reviews to find fun things to do this summer, so I thought I'd try MY hand at writing a "review" type "blog" about our latest adventure!

Summer is upon us here in central Texas and that means the temperature is on the rise!  We had a steady week of 100+ temps, but then this week we were in the high 90's - like ya' know 99....

Due to the fact that we will soon be paying $1400 a month for our apartment and they still can't seem to pay someone to keep the pool clean (when Jason went to check it out last night, he couldn't see the legs of the guy swimming in it, it was so cloudy) I am on the hunt for the perfect pool.

The perfect pool would be entertaining to all 4 of my kids, not too boring for the older 2 (a few fountains springing up out of the ground keeps them occupied for only so long,) adventurous enough for Liam (he likes to jump off of stuff...) and yet mild enough that I don't have to hold Finn the entire time without fear of him drowning.  He may only be 14 months old, but he weighs enough that my arms get tired of constantly carrying him around.  Oh and of course it would be free.  :)

Veteran's Memorial Pool located up here in Cedar Park gets 3 out of those 4 "perfects." While it's not free, it cost $18 for all 6 of us to get in, it was a major hit with all 5 of my kids!  Oh wait, I guess that technically Jason isn't a kid, but he still had fun.

Finn was able to stand or crawl through about half of the "kiddie" pool and he enjoyed having some freedom while still being close to mom or dad.

Liam was ALL over the place, they have a ton of lifeguards that keep a very good eye on things, so I wasn't panicking over the fact that I physically couldn't keep an eye on him the entire time.

Katie spent her time alternating between the high dive and the slide.

And Evie really seemed to enjoy the floating-log-rope-bridge thing.

In addition to all of these fun things I've pictured, they also had water basketball and an area for plain old swimming.  By the playscape the surface was very beachy and had a gradual slope into the deeper parts of the pool, there were gentle fountains here for the super little ones.  There was also a separate mini slide apart from the one on the playscape.  My goodness there was a lot to do here!  (And when you get tired there were covered areas with picnic tables or sunny lounge chairs to lay on.)

The best part of this pool however was the giant bucket on top of the playscape!  It would fill up and then tip over and dump on the suspecting and unsuspecting alike!  (Do be warned that very little kids could get flattened by this sucker.)

Finn wasn't the biggest fan of the bucket...

Liam was though!


I think that Veteran's Memorial Pool was a hit and I'm sure we'll be back.

Stay tuned for another "what to do in Austin" type review of whatever water hole we visit next!