New Richmond Pool,

AKA "the water park" as Morgan says, is a great place to have some fun. I took my kids there on opening day. It seems like an insane idea, but I waited until the price drops after 5 PM (kids 5 and under are always free). Most people were there all day; so, by the time we got there the parking lot was only about half-full, and we didn't feel crowded at all.

Actually, the pictures and images on the website don't do it justice. There are two pools, a lap pool that you have to really search to find, and a much larger play-land. The play pool has zero entry, a very small toddler slide, a wide family slide, a whirl pool, a large platform for climbing and shooting water at people from various hoses and knobs. There is also a huge bucket on top that dumps a ton of water at some unknown to me interval. The water comes down pretty hard; so, I don't recommend small kids hanging out under the water fall area.

It feels like a much larger play area and a small area at the same time. It is not a typical square shape (as you can see on the site). This makes it easy to keep to one area, or explore whole new areas. There are life guards at about the 2.5 foot water level to tell the smaller kids to keep to the shallower areas of the pool. The play pool is only 3 foot at the deepest; so, if you've got a little one and a bigger one you can easily follow the bigger one around while holding the littler one without getting the little one too wet.

I highly recommend going for some fun in the sun (or shade, they do have some shaded areas in the play-pool). Unlike another pool in the area, there are no play structures outside of the pool; however, there is a large amount of grass within the fenced in area around the pool. So, there is a place to play off the hot pavement while out of the water.

Morgan Jo aka the fish

We've been working to help Morgan keep comfortable in the water and to learn to propell herself. We've been going to the "big pool" at least once a week (as I mentioned earlier I think). We were having a really hard time getting her to actually move toward us while swimming.

This week we went to visit a friend with a pool and Morgan wore those swimmy arm things. While wearing those she figured out how to move herself in the water to get to where she wanted to be. She of course was swimming with her head above the water in that instance, but she was moving.

Yesterday we got to test her new forward momentum skills at the pool. The swimmy arm things seemed to have given her just the edge she needed. Now, she can jump off of the wall and swim a foot or two toward us. She also reaches our her arms to grab onto the wall while swimming underwater and kicking hard to get to the wall. I'm hoping to take a camera the next time we go to the pool to give you a real view of how well she is swimming.

I just can't say enough about the Diaper Dolphin swimming video that we have. It has really helped me know what to do to help her keep comfortable and learn to swim. I recommend it to anyone who has a youngster.