There is an amusement park about an hour from us that is geared towards young children R's age, so when a bunch of women from a message board I frequent all decided to go, J and I took R and joined them. (Grammie and Grampie watched RUS for us). It was a GREAT time, up until the torrential rains started. It was seriously a monsoon-- we got completely soaked, like to the bone running from the bathrooms to an awning. We tried to wait the rain out a bit but it just POURED, although I was glad we waited through what seemed to be the worst of it before driving home in one of the biggest storms all summer.
Anyway, R loved all the rides and couldn't wait to keep going on more. Because it rained we got rain tickets and will try to go back sometime in August.
This bulldozer ride was the first one she went on. It was really funny because the little girl she sat next to wasn't pushing her joystick thing, so R kept trying to pick up her hand and tell her to control it.
This was a little schoolhouse equipped with a chalkboard wall and chalk and erasers. R and this little girl had a great time drawing circles and then erasing them-- we had to pull her away!
It's funny but it seems like every children's museum or zoo we've been to lately has involved a cow that kids can "milk". All the kids were crowded around this gently competing for chances to milk water into the bucket.
Then this train ride was one of the last rides she went on and she was already getting
really tired. She looks plumb tuckered in this, but of course once she got off the first thing she said was, "I want to go on another ride!"
**I started this post shortly after the trip but it took me several weeks to actually get pictures added and post it on the site. It's now August 7th and I just have to add that we drive past Dutch Wonderland on our way to Ohio and both times R squealed in delight, "The musement park! There's the musement park!" She talks about it every now and again, and we saved the park map and she pulls that out and uses it to have adventures with her Yellow Crystal Princess Dora doll.
On a whim, J and I decided to take the kids to Dutch Wonderland this morning. It was a great time, especially because R was even more into the rides than she was last year. They had some new ones, including this one where you lay down on your stomach to ride. It was like pretending we were SuperGirls.
Here's our family photo, complete with J's hand standing in for my face.
And then the kids wanted to be the grownups!
J and RUS riding the train. This is a great way to start off the park adventure because you drive through and see a lot of the rides as you're riding. RUS, surprisingly, was not all that into the train until after we started moving. He seemed a little unsure of many of the rides--he needed some time to warm up to them, really.
After we'd been at the park for several hours--including watching one of the diving shows, "The Frog Prince" complete with three diving frogs who save the day--RUS finally rode some rides he got really excited about. The pandas and the bulldozers were his favorites, judging from his reaction to them.
I was impressed R was brave enough to ride this ride by herself. The frogs actually bounce quite high! 
And here's the other jumping frog. She wanted me to ride it with her, but only one adult per ride. If we had waited for me to ride with her we'd have had to wait through three other adults whose children really wanted them to ride with them--and I wasn't feeling it, so I convinced her I would stand and cheer her along on the sidelines.
Posts
