Wet N Wild // Homeschool Convention

Hey Everyone!!!!  You may be wondering why there hasn't been a post since Wednesday. That's because we went on a mini vacation!!! The surprise ( that was supposed to be for Lauren's birthday, ) was Wet n Wild!! We left Thursday morning, and got in the park around 10:30 to 11. We were really excited on the way there, but even more so when we got to the park. :)


This is the " welcome entrance", I guess you could call it. The main one where we got our tickets was farther down the sidewalk. We had to park in a parking lot across the street and walk. ( It wasn't that far, just in case you were wondering. )
At Wet n Wild, they have some wild rides that you can get really wet on. :)







The first water ride we went in was the wave pool. (It's not really a ride, but since the waves come and you ride them...I guess it's a mini ride. ) The waves come on for probably 10 or 15 minutes, then they go off. And you have to wait 10 or 15 minutes for them to come back on.




 

This is a picture I took from the parking lot. We went on this tube ride called "The Black Hole. Four people can fit in 1 tube. You go down and it has a couple of drops in it. It's very dark, too.  Then all of a sudden, you fell some heat. When you get to this point, it's like a funnel. You go around until you drop into the little hole. Sometimes, I would go down backwards, and that was very scary. We didn't go around the funnel many times because strong waters were pushing us toward the hole. At the beginning, where the lifeguard would push your tube down, someone would go down backwards, and it felt like you were dropping from a high point. That is the scariest part. Lauren is such a fun person to go with on a scary ride. She went down backwards one time and she just screams so loud. :) It's really fun though. This Black Hole Ride was our favorite ride.
So then when you go through the whole, you get pushed out into the small pool where you exit the tube and get out.  Another ride like this one, but all open, was very scary. When you first start out, there's a gigantic drop!!! I mean, it's a really big one. Then you go up on the sides and it feels like you're going to tip over. And you get water sprayed in your face. This one ride sprayed water at you and in your face a lot.
Then there's a racing ride. It's like the ride that you lay on a mat and slide down and see who gets to the bottom first. It's like that but with water pushing you. I went down the middle slide 2 times and I think it goes the fastest. I really liked that ride too.

 This is another picture I took from the parking lot of a tube ride.

 

 Daddy and Sarah went down this ride where you lay on your back with your hands crossed over your chest. It drops you straight down and you slide into the water at the end. It was really scary. I have been on one of those before, but not quite that high. It feels like you're dropping out of the sky. Right next to that was one just like it, but where you stand on this square, and the bottom opens up and you drop down. ( It's like this: you're standing up and the floor opens up. ) That is the most scariest ride there, I think. Nobody went on that ride.  After the waterpark closed, we ate supper and stayed the night at Quality Inn and Suites. They had a continental breakfast, which was very yummy.


Then on Friday and Saturday, we attended the homeschool convention that was held at the Gaylord Palms. It is a gigantic hotel and the convention is held there every year. This is the entrance to the Gaylord Palms.

The Gaylord Palms has a huge convention center where a lot of vendors come and set up their booths. They sell curriculum, books and homeschool material. Multitudes of people come to this convention to look at books and buy their curriculum for the school year.

This is a part of the hotel. To the right they have a huge swimming pool and a water play area.

This is the first booth you see when you walk into the convention hall. Each booth has a number and there are over 900 booths.  It is so much fun to come to this convention and walk around, looking at all the booths.

So many booths are in one row. You may notice people are pulling suitcases and carts around. They put their stuff in them, like information, books, and whatever else you want.

There are so many people. Here is a booth that tons of people are at. This booth is called Rainbow Center and they sold books, games, kids building toys, and other things. I found a book called Tirzah at this booth. It's about a girl and her family when Pharaoh was making them find their own stuff for building. Her family sees the plagues being poured upon the Egyptians and their family goes through the Red Sea with Moses. The book is basically going through the Exodus. It's pretty neat.

The people that ran this booth were missionaries to Israel. I asked the man what Yahweh means, and he said that it's another name for Jesus. (Jews call Jesus, Yahweh. ) He said the name Jesus is a translated name from something, and that's translated from the Greek and that's translated from the Hebrew. In the Old Testament, the translated name is Joshua, which means Salvation. That's why the angel told Joseph to call Jesus' name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)

These are coins from Israel, which they were selling.

This is a figurine of the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant.

This is a replica of the Torah- the first 5 books of the Bible.  In Israel, when the scrolls are opened up and read, the priests (or whoever reads them) are very careful with them. No one is allowed to touch the scroll (like in the middle where the words are written) because it's hand written; and if it's touched, it gets ruined.

At one table, they had a microscope and you could look at different slides. I took a picture through the microscope of this ant. ( Sorry you can't see the whole thing. It was kind of hard to get my camera focused enough to see the ant. ) It's amazing how different things look when magnified.

Here's a picture of magnified wool.

I thought this was very cool. I have never seen wool under a microscope.

This is a picture of a sponge. I can't remember what kind it is. (This is the type of sponge you find in the ocean. )

This fountain is the first thing you see when you go up the escalator. If you go to the left, it will take you to the Averies. They have 4 different parts you can stay in: Everglades, Key West, and two other ones I can't remember.

In the avery, there is a little section of alligators. I thought these looked funny. One has his head on the rock and the others are sleeping on top of each other.

Here is another picture of the alligators.

This is the section where the alligators were. They are all on the middle rock and some were on the bank.

This is a pretty waterfall.

 

This video was taken on Saturday evening after everyone had left and cleaned up their booths. You don't realize how big the convention hall really is until you see it when it's empty.

 

This is the Food Court. You could either buy your lunch or bring it. We brought our lunch and got Get n Go meals for supper. This place was full of people at supper time. ( As you can see in the video.)

 

 

This booth was my favorite one, because of all the books.  ( I really liked the Rainbow Center booth I mentioned above.) These books are written by Janet and Geoff Benge, and they are excellent. I have a bunch of these, and I got Francis Asbury and Klaus-Dieter John at the convention. I can't wait to read about these men. Janet and Geoff Benge wrote all of these books, and they even got to meet some of the people they wrote about: Klaus-Dieter John, David Bussau and many others.

 

We also had a candy contest to see who could collect the most candy. Here are the results.

Team 1: Sarah and Lauren

Team 2: Ashley and Deborah

And the winner is...

TEAM 2!!!     This is what our candy pile looked like. (That doesn't include team 1's candy pile.)

 

We left the hotel this morning around 9:50 and got home around 1:20. And so ends our fun-filled, mini vacation.

Hope ya'll had fun reading about our little journey. If you would like to, please leave a comment. :)

Love Ashley  

 

This week's Bible verse:

Psalms 119:9-16

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statues. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statues: I will not forget thy word.