The "k" in KOA stands for Kids!

After the mid-week July 1st holiday, we moved the RV eastbound to the KOA on the Thousand Island Parkway for a three-day weekend. Brian and Michelle, John’s son and daughter-in-law, met us there with their kids - Kylen (age 6) and Tyson (almost 4). John and I registered first and we checked out the KOA activity sheet that outlined the fun stuff planned for kids for that week. The theme was “Jurassic Park” and we were a bit nervous about that. A few days earlier by phone, Brian told us he and Kylen had just watched the movie Jurassic Park and, following the movie that night, Kylen had a hard time sleeping! Oh well… not much we could do to change the theme so we got ourselves settled at our site and awaited the arrival of Brian and his crew.

FYI, this KOA recently added a number of “Kabins” to their properties. These one-room cabins have a double bed and bunks, small fridge and microwave. They have a deck out front, a fire pit on one side, and a BBQ and picnic table on the other. This was perfect for Brian, Michelle and kids for their 3 overnights. They were also situated close to the 2 kid’s pools and they were a wee walk away from our site.

Since Kylen’s birthday (6th) was in June and Tyson’s birthday (4th) is coming up in September, we celebrated the two birthdays with one party on the Saturday night! Grandpa John and I made sure there were lots of birthday presents (hula hoops, bubble blowing bottles, swim goggles, a dive mask, chocolate initials, etc.). We munched down hamburgs and a coca-cola birthday cake topped with whipped cream! They sure grow up fast.

On Sunday, the KOA Kids Activity Director got the bigger kids at the pool into “Dino-diving” which entailed diving to retrieve mini plastic dinosaurs from the bottom of the pool. By the end of the afternoon, every kid (large and small) had one of the little dino-toys in their grip. Then he took all the kids off to the Scavenger Hunt in the park and he had kids running in every direction hunting for special ‘artefacts’.

Not enough you say? Well, they put all the kids onto a wagon at 4 pm each day and use a golf cart to pull the wagon around the RV Park. Now… if the weather if so-so, then the kids get bubbles to blow from the wagon. But, if the weather is good (and it was that Sunday), the campers hook up their hoses to the water spouts and spray the wagon and all the kids as it passes by! What a blast – whether you’re on the wagon or out there spraying your hose at the kids on the wagon as its goes by, everyone was laughing big-time! As Brian and Tyson passed by our site on the wagon, Grandpa John could not resist and in addition to the hose, tossed at least two full buckets of water at the wagon! Brian and Tyson tried to position themselves to miss the water attack but to no avail – they were soaked by the end of the wagon ride – as was every kid!

The greatest piece of entertainment and learning though were the two kids’ pools. On Saturday, Kylen was too nervous to swim without her life-jacket. On Sunday, Brian switched up the life jacket for ‘swimmie’ arm-bands and suddenly, she was acting like a fish! By Monday, she was floating on her back, on her tummy, using her arms in a breast-stroke fashion from one end of the pool to the other! Super progress!

Tyson, on the other hand, has no fear so the biggest challenge was keeping an eye on him as he zoomed up the ladder on the water slide and then propelled himself sideways down into the one pool – he did not care if anyone was there to catch him! He also graduated to using the ‘swimmies’ and jumped over and over and over and over and over again into the other pool – he was a tired camper by dinner-time. We headed off to Pecks Marina for pizza on Monday night – Tyson fell asleep at the table!

I managed to corral the kids for a photo-op when they were in the small hot tub with Michelle – a single moment to catch all the fun:

Mega-thanx to the KOA. The facility was super – a real family adventure! I know the ‘K’ in KOA means Kampgrounds but it could easily also mean ‘Kids’. They did a great job entertaining all the kids – even the one’s who are in the 50’s and 60’s!

Catch up with you soon… m.