Silliman Center

Last month I found the most wonderful place in the Bay Area. The Silliman Aquatic Center in Newark is a Giant indoor pool and water park. Holly loves the water, and this is the place for her.They are open year round, Fri/Sat/Sun hours, the cost is around $7.50 a person which cost a little more then other pools, but that lets you swim for at least 5 hours depending on the day you attend.This is the best part. The water playground. This is very similar to the San Leandro Aquatic Center, with the two slides and the play structure in the zero depth pool.But because it is indoors, it is warm and open all year round. There is also a lazy River, which Holly really loved, you can simply float around or use inner tubes.There are water obstacles that dump and drip, and fountains and sprayers. All kinds of fun things for the kids to do. Holly is too little for the tube slide, but she certainly loved the normal slide and went on it several times.There was also two grown up water slides. they were so much fun. The blue one is the best slide ever, I went on it twice. Joel tried the Purple one, which was a tube, and dark.It doesn't have as many twist and turns though, so its not as fun. We all took turns, it was fun to go around the river and wait for one of us to come out of the end of the slide into the big pool.We decided to try the floater on Holly to see if she would float and we could let her hang out in the water just holding onto our hands. She did not like it and did not want to put it on.It didn't work out so well int he water either, she basically slide horizontal, face down, not that I let that happen, but the vest had the predilection to be in that position, rather then vertical and upright.

We spent a lot of time in the lazy river. She really liked it, though she didn't like the tubes so much either, so most of the time I was holding her as we went round and round int he water.

There was this main sprayer, and then these other buckets that would tip over as they filled up and dump water down on you. She loved that she was in the water, and that we were moving at the same time.

We took a break to have a snack. They had round table pizza which was yummy and we had chicken nuggets and a sandwich. They have this little cafe just outside of the pool area.

Here is my happy girl going down the slide. Not only does she love the slide part, but she also really likes the big splash at the end when the water goes everywhere, even in her face.

Almost as fun as going down the slide itself is waiting at the bottom for someone else to go down. When they do she gets splashed with makes her giggle and do the happy dance. She is so excited.

Here is Daddy lifting Holly back up to the slide. He had taken a break from swimming but I wanted to get some pictures so sent him in to help. A few times we walked around the long way, up the stairs.

But it was a lot quicker just to sit her at the top (I wasn't really tall enough) and then let her go down over and over. She was having so much fun in the water, walking around and climbing.

So then again she goes down the slide. She kept asking for more and then would try to climb up the slide once she was at the bottom.

We were all so exhausted when we finally left at the end of the day, Holly was like the energizer bunny, go go go, and roaring to play and swim and run and splash. Sadly we haven't been back because we are so busy.

I wish there were week day hours, then I would be down there all of the time. It is quite a drive, maybe 45 minutes, but it is certainly worth it. And Holly gets to sleep on the way there, and back, so it works perfectly. I play to host a play date there soon.