On Thursday, we headed with some friends to Dutch Wonderland for one last summer hurrah. Our first stop was to hop on the Sky Ride to be carried to the back of the park. Here's Leah, Molly, and Chad high above the trees, which the girls loved.
When we arrived, Molly said she would not ride any roller coasters. However, once she saw the Joust and heard Simon say he was going to ride it, she chose to participate. Much to my surprise, so did Leah, who was barely tall enough to be allowed on with a parent.
Next stop - bumper cars. Molly loved this too, but Leah did not and cried the whole time riding around with me. This left her not wanting to participate for a bit, but thankfully she joined back in after lunch.
We took a ride on the monorail, of course. Molly still likes peering out the window, just like she did 3 years ago.
The Frog Hopper, which lifts you up then drops you a bit, was loads of fun for all.
This year they've opened a full-service restaurant called Merlin's. It was great. Not much more expensive than the cafeteria and vendor options around the park, but so much nicer menu and service. Highly recommended. And the portions were huge. Here's Simon chowing down on his children's hamburger.
I think Molly enjoyed every ride she went on except this one. This picture was taken before the shuttle got fully going. Once it did, she got very queasy. Possibly not the best choice of ride immediately after a big lunch of fried chicken fingers and fried tater tots.
One nice things about our visit was the lack of lines. Only a couple of rides had really long lines. Many of them looked more like this.
The Wonder Whip is a simple little ride that pulls the kids along then whips them quickly around the end, but the kids loved it.
There were a few rides that Leah could not ride, and a few that she chose not to ride. While resting as others rode the Turtle Whirl, but she proclaimed herself the "Princess of the rock."
This ride was definitely not for me. If you don't like spinning around, avoid the Turtle Whirl. For the rest of them, it was a lot of fun.
Leah finally snapped out her funk when she got to do the thing she'd been asking for all day - ride the pony. They even gave her a fun miniature one.
The girl's love the Crazy Plane, which goes in a circle and gets pretty high, as well. Molly exclaimed shortly after the ride got underway "This is so much fun! Mommy would not like this." She knows her Mom well.
This ride, called Kite Flight, has you lie on your belly and fly through the air as if you were in a hang glider. We decided it was more like flying like a superhero, so instead referred to it as the Superman ride. And yes, that's Leah going on this one. It shocked me that she wanted to, but she did and she loved it. One of her favorites of the day.
The Fun Slide was requested multiple times during the day. It was the perfect ride for the younger kids, while the older kids did a bigger ride. It may have gotten a bit competitive here, as Zach and Matilda have pulled ahead of Leah and me.
Before heading out, we did the Joust roller coaster one more time. This time, I rode with Leah and Chad rode with Molly. Here's a shot of her as we zoomed around. I think she's enjoying it!
Chad and I were so proud of how well the girls did. They rode some rides that I wouldn't even tackle. On our drive up, Molly asked if Leah got to skip her nap. When the response was yes, Molly turned to Leah and proclaimed, "Ooo, it's your lucky day!" It turned out to be a lucky day for us all. We had a blast. You can see more pictures from our day on Flickr.
