Daddy's Girl

Last night we joined Travis at the Water Park of America, where he was spending a fun night with the junior high kids.  On Wednesdays during the summer, we get to do a lot of fun things like this, all over the twin cities.  Travis and I have always loved it, but now it's really great to be able to bring Ava along too!  As you know, she is such a water bug and this is the 3rd or 4th time we've brought her here.  Although we arrived after a very long day and I was sure she wasn't going to last long, she managed to eek out every ounce of energy she had left and spent 2 hours playing like a wild woman in the park!  

I sat with her for quite awhile in this part of the kids play land, scooping water with her toys and splashing around.  But as soon as she caught a glimpse of her Daddy coming to play with her, I was old news! She couldn't wait to go on all kinds of adventures with her Dad, who incidentally, couldn't wait to do the same with her either!  

She had to show him how she could stand up and sit down in the water first, touching her toes and splashing the water like crazy.  She's also very proud that she can walk around on her own (in 4 inches of water) and she was more than happy to show anyone who was interested!

But my favorite thing to watch was this.  

Hand in hand, for an hour, these two walked and climbed all over the play land.  

Ava would point to where she wanted to go and Travis would take her over and over again.

They spent tons of time together, playing and laughing while lots of junior highers joined in on the fun too!  It's so precious for me to see him show her off to them!  He's so proud of her and I love that he gets so much joy out of being her Dad.  

I tried desperately to take a good picture of them going down this water slide together, but because my camera has the shutter speed of a snail, I decided it just wasn't happening!  This was the best I could do.  Ava loved the slide and wasn't scared at all of the big splash at the end!  She usually opened her mouth up and stuck out her tongue, trying to lick as much water as possible in the process :) 

As you can see, they had a blast together and I had a grand time watching :)  I love all my time with Ava, but I also love seeing Trav's time with her too.  We may do lots of things differently, but Ava needs her Daddy's influence just as much as mine.  I sat and watched them last night, so grateful for the man I married.  I always knew he was going to be a great Dad, but to see him love it as much as he does, makes my heart very thankful and happy.  After the chaos and emotion of this week, we all needed a fun night last night and we got it!