The Land of Dragons

My senior summer, I started working at the uber classy, super fantastic Dragonland. My friend Melissa worked there and was always talking about how much fun she had, I needed another job, so I decided to apply. My brand new boyfriend of a month and a half (Evan) asked his sister (who'd worked there for a few summers already) to put in a good word for me too. So began my many, many years spending summers at Dragonland.

I was an attendent (aka: sand nazi and life jacket hander-outer) and occasionally a cashier. I worked 4 hour shifts and thought it very grusome. I made minimum wage and probably developed lots of skin cancer, but I freaking loved that job. I worked every summer until we moved to DeKalb in 2005. That's right folks, I even worked there in college, while pregnant with Ebeth and after I was married. Why?! (you ask in a horrified voice) I have no idea.

At first I was just an attendant and cashier (you know, normal high school jobs). I lived at home through college, and did have another job, but still continued doing time at Dragonland. Eventually, I started teaching swim lessons in the mornings, which led me to becoming the director of swim lessons the summer I was pregnant with Elisabeth. I held that position for three terrible, terrible summers. I was in charge of hiring and managing high school kids who never freaking showed up to teach their stupid classes, which means I had to calm down lots of parents who were very angry about never having a constant teacher for their kids' classes. During my second summer, Evan was hired on too, so that was kind of nice because we occasionally got to work together. Kyle was the WSS for a summer or two, so there was a time when we both had keys to the pool and were technically in charge. When I was the director of swim lessons, I hired almost my entire family as swim teachers, so if you wanted a job and could teach children not to swallow water, you were hired.

Probably the only real benefit of me working there 7 summers is that Elisabeth got to take swim lessons for free!! Since I was the director and I made Evan teach classes, Jana came every day to take Elisabeth to swim lessons. Elisabeth was like a mermaid. She was never scared or timid in the water. She loved the dragon slide, the mushroom, and jumping into the deep end.

When we moved, Evan and I were both shocked at the prices of getting into a pool since neither one of us had had to pay to get into Dragonland in almost a decade. And, now that we're in Colorado, we're completely lost because having an outdoor pool like the ones in Illinois isn't as common due to the cool temperatures and low humidity. So, we're forced to swim indoors even in the summer. Oh, Dragonland, how spoiled you have made us.